Page "Symphony No. 6 (Mahler)" Paragraph 19

Formally, the symphony is one of Mahler's most outwardly conventional.

The first three movements are relatively traditional in structure and character, with a standard sonata form first movement ( even including an exact repeat of the exposition, unusual in Mahler ) leading to the middle movements-one slow, the other a scherzo-with-trios.

However, attempts to analyze the vast finale in terms of the sonata archetype have encountered serious difficulties.

As Dika Newlin has pointed out: