Maestra New continues NZSO’s cycle of Mahler symphonies with his Sixth Symphony, nicknamed 'Tragic'.
This colossal masterpiece for a massive orchestra was noted even in its own time for “surpass[ing] its predecessors in solidity of structure, but also in its realism and nerve-wracking intensity” (Julius Korngold). The final movement famously includes tremendous blows from a giant hammer, said to represent the debilitating blows of fate.