Symphony No. 6 in A Major

For years, Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony was the Cinderella of the cycle. It is certainly the most enigmatic. For some, the ending in particular is curiously ambiguous—by no means the all-embracing affirmation with which so many of his symphonies conclude. This may reflect Bruckner’s state of mind at the time he wrote it. After the catastrophic, humiliating premiere of his Third Symphony in 1877 (the Fourth and Fifth remained unperformed), Bruckner waited two years before starting work on the Sixth. Neglected and ridiculed in Vienna, his adopted home, and lonely and depressed by his continuing failure to find a wife, Bruckner would have had good cause to doubt what he saw as his “vocation”. The first movement seems at first to try to strike a brighter note, with a lively dancing rhythm instead of the usual mysterious string tremolo. But shadows quickly fall, and the “Adagio” that follows is full of desolation and thwarted aspiration, at least until the exquisitely resigned coda. A haunted “Scherzo”, full of eerie pre-echoes of Mahler, leads to one of Bruckner’s most perplexing stop-start finales. It is arguable that Bruckner’s religious faith is upheld at the very end, but subversive, questioning elements obtrude almost till the last minute. Listen without preconceptions, however, and the Sixth Symphony tells a moving and compelling story in its own right.