Gustav Mahler's Symphony No 6, Alban Berg's Three pieces for Orchestra and Franz Schubert's Andante in B minor

THE world would be hard-pressed to find a more pessimistic composer than Gustav Mahler.

Happiness was not something that the great composer found at every turn.

Far from it... in fact until about 30 years ago his epic compositions were regarded with a huge degree of suspicion.

Even though he died in 1911, it was not until after the Second World War that his symphonies became the crowd-pullers they are today.

And that's probably because we were then ready for the unstable, anxious complexities of Mahler's scores.

Most experts now blame the composer's childhood upbringing for his neuroticism.

Certainly his 6th symphony, played here by the SWR Sinfonieorchester, has pessimism in abundance.

The first version of the work has three crashing blows, marked to be played with a sledgehammer on a resonant surface.

These represented the hammer blows of fate. Need I say more?

As things turned out, Mahler was right to be anxious.

A year after the symphony's first performance he was sacked from the Vienna Opera,

His daughter died and his own heart condition became apparent.

Yet the work has power, feeling, emotion and that wonderful doom-laden quality that only Mahler can bring to composition.

For this is real music, not written to order, not commissioned by a rich benefactor, but composed from the heart. What a shame his heart was full of doubt and fear.

This splendid double CD from the Hanssler Classic collection also offers Alban Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra.

Berg, who died in 1935, owes his orchestral writing to Mahler's own efforts and his scores here are a complex mixture of exhilaration and uncertainty.

The two-hour CDs conclude with Schubert's Andante in B minor. This has disturbing sides, too. But there's a depth of feeling that stirs the soul.

Hanssler Classic LC10622