Mahler composed the symphony at an exceptionally happy time in his life, as he had married Alma Schindler in 1902, and during the course of the work's composition his second daughter was born.

Berg expressed his opinion of the stature of this symphony in a 1908 letter to Webern: "Es gibt doch nur eine VI.

‘It is the hero on whom fall three blows of fate, the last of which fells him, as a tree is felled.’ Those were his words.”[4]The symphony is scored for large orchestra, consisting of the following:

The sound of the hammer, which features in the last movement, was stipulated by Mahler to be "brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a non-metallic character (like the fall of an axe)."

[8]The first movement, which for the most part has the character of a march, features a motif consisting of an A major triad turning to A minor over a distinctive timpani rhythm.

When he revised the work, Mahler removed the last of these three hammer strokes so that the music built to a sudden moment of stillness in place of the third blow.

Mahler conceived the work as having the scherzo second and the slow movement third, a somewhat unclassical arrangement adumbrated in such earlier large-scale symphonies as Beethoven's No.

It was in this arrangement that the symphony was completed (in 1904) and published (in March 1906); and it was with a conducting score in which the scherzo preceded the slow movement that Mahler began rehearsals for the work's first performance, as noted by Mahler biographer Henry-Louis de La Grange: "Scherzo 2" was undeniably the original order, the one in which Mahler first conceived, composed, and published the Sixth Symphony, and also the one in which he rehearsed the work with two different orchestras before changing his mind at the last minute before the premiere.

Even after the final rehearsal he was still not sure whether or not he had found the right tempo for the Scherzo, and had wondered whether he should invert the order of the second and third movements (which he subsequently did).

Mahler conducted the 27 May 1906 public premiere, and his other two subsequent performances of the Sixth Symphony, in November 1906 (Munich) and 4 January 1907 (Vienna) with his revised order of the inner movements.

In his own copy of the score, he wrote on the first page:[13] Nach Mahlers Angabe II erst Scherzo dann III Andante ("According to Mahler's indications, first II Scherzo, then III Andante")[17]Other conductors, such as Oskar Fried, continued to perform (and eventually record) the work as 'Andante/Scherzo', per the second edition, right up to the early 1960s.

Exceptions included two performances in Vienna on 14 December 1930 and 23 May 1933, conducted by Anton Webern, who utilised the Scherzo/Andante order of the inner movements.

In contrast, scholars such as Theodor W. Adorno, Henry-Louis de La Grange, Hans-Peter Jülg and Karl Heinz Füssl have argued for the original order as more appropriate, expostulating on the overall tonal scheme and the various relationships between the keys in the final three movements.

Füssl, in particular, noted that Ratz made his decision under historical circumstances where the history of the different autographs and versions was not completely known at the time.

[14] The most recent IGMG critical edition of the Sixth Symphony was published in 2010, under the general editorship of Reinhold Kubik, and uses the Andante/Scherzo order for the middle movements.

[20] In keeping with Mahler's original order, British conductor John Carewe has noted parallels between the tonal plan of Beethoven's Symphony No.

David Matthews has noted the interconnectivity of the first movement with the Scherzo as similar to Mahler's interconnectivity of the first two movements of the Fifth Symphony, and that performing the Mahler with the Andante/Scherzo order would damage the structure of the tonal key relationships and remove this parallel,[20] a structural disruption of what de La Grange has described as follows: "...that very idea which many listeners today consider one of the most audacious and brilliant ever conceived by Mahler –: the linking of two movements – one in quadruple, the other in triple time – with more or less the same thematic material"[17]Moreover, de La Grange, referring to the 1919 Mengelberg telegram, has questioned the notion of Alma simply expressing a personal view of the movement order, and reiterates the historical fact of the original movement order: "The fact that the initial order had the composer's stamp of approval for two whole years prior to the premiere argues for further performances in that form...

"It is far more likely ten years after Mahler's death and with a much clearer perspective on his life and career, Alma would have sought to be faithful to his artistic intentions.

Thus, her telegram of 1919 still remains a strong argument today in favour of Mahler's original order...it is stretching the bounds of both language and reason to describe [Andante-Scherzo] as the "only correct" one.

Of course we must respect the fact of his final change of mind but to imagine that we should accept this without debate or comment beggars belief.

Let the performers decide, and admit frankly that if the criterion for making a decision regarding the correct order of the inner movements must be what Mahler himself ultimately wanted, then no final answer is possible.

However, advocates on opposite sides of the inner movement debate, such as Del Mar and Matthews, have separately argued for restoration of the third hammer blow.