Gustav Mahler is the blessed with bright children and a beautiful wife. And yet he feels the need to compose music imbued with a profound sense of tragedy. Donald Macleod continues the story of Mahler's marriage to Alma.

Their relationship wasn't always the happiest, the terms he laid down for their marriage were far from fair, and she wasn't always faithful to her husband. But Alma Mahler exerted a powerful fascination on Gustav Mahler, and proved not only an inspiration but a also a very practical support for his working and creative life.

In today's programme we find Mahler composing extraordinary songs on the deaths of children just hours after kissing and hugging his own daughters. Tempting fate, maybe? Certainly that's what Alma Mahler thought. It's tempting also to see something premonitory about his 6th symphony - The 'Tragic' - which he sketched out at his idyllic summer retreat at Maiernigg on the Wörthersee during the summer of 1904. And yet it was written at one of the calmest, most serene periods of Mahler's life - and possibly wouldn't have been written at all had Alma not managed to find the manuscript which Gustav had forgotten to bring with him!

Nun Will die Sonn' so hell aufgehen (Kindertotenlieder)
Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, baritone
Berlin Philharmonic orchestra
Rudolf Kempe, conductor

Nun se'ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen (Kindertotenlieder)
Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, baritone
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Rudolf Kempe, conductor

Symphony 6, 1st movt: Allegro; 2nd movt: Scherzo)
New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Wenn dein Mutterlein tritt zur Tur herein (Kindertotenlieder)
Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, baritone
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Rudolf Kempe, conductor. Show less