After the immeasurable loss of our beloved director Ivan Tasovac and last Friday’s concert dedicated to him, the full-sized Belgrade Philharmonic and Chief Conductor Gabriel Feltz will be back at Kolarac Hall on Wednesday, October 6, at 8:00 p.m. with 100 musicians playing Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 6, also known as the Tragic.

This capital work of symphonic literature, dark and ominous, is also a magnificent story about a hero’s struggle against fate. According to the tone of the introductory movements, the nickname Military would be more appropriate, in the same way that the orchestra has been working tirelessly, in deep mourning for the loss of its director, to whom they have dedicated all future performances.

This colossal symphony lasts almost a full 90 minutes and was scored for a large orchestra, with an increased number of woodwind and brass wind instruments, and percussion instruments being the most numerous. In addition to two sets of timpani, xylophones, large bass drums, cymbals, snare drums, triangles, cowbells and lead plates that emulate church bells, the composition also requires a non-musical instrument, created exclusively for this score – the famous Mahler’s hammer, a specially constructed wooden hammer, which is a sensation in classical music and will sound in the final movement as an ominous premonition.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 was also the composition with which the young conductor Gabriel Feltz presented himself to the Belgrade audience for the first time on June 26, 2009. Tickets for the concert are on sale at the Philharmonic ticket-office as well as online. Tickets will also be on sale at the Kolarac box-office on Wednesday before the concert.