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The 'Symphony No. 7' by Gustav Mahler was written from 1904 to 1906.
The symphony is sometimes known as '''The Song of the Night''', a name Mahler did not approve of. This name is not as commonly known as those of other Mahler symphonies ( No.1 - ''Titan'', No. 2 - ''Resurrection'', No. 6 - ''Tragic'', and No. 8 - ''Symphony of a Thousand'').

Contents

Background

Instrumentation

Structure

The music

1st movement

2nd movement

3rd movement

4th movement

5th movement

Critical analysis

Reception

Premières

Recordings

Further reading

Background

In 1904, Mahler was enjoying great international success as a conductor, but he was also, at last, beginning to enjoy international success as a composer. His second daughter was born that June, and during his customary summer break away from Vienna in his lakeside retreat at Maiernegg in the Carinthian Mountains, he began work on second and fourth movements (two ''Nachtmusik'' movements) for the Seventh Symphony while mapping out much of the rest of the work. He then worked on the Seventh intensively the following summer, claiming to take just four weeks to complete the first, third and fifth movements.
The completed score was dated August 15 1905, and the orchestration was completed in 1906. As he had not yet completed the Sixth Symphony, he laid the Seventh aside and continued to make small changes during rehearsals. The première was on September 19 1908 in Prague, at the festival marking the Golden Jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph.
The three years which elapsed between the completion of the score and the Symphony's première witnessed dramatic changes in Mahler's life and career. In March 1907 he was forced to resign his conductorship of the Vienna State Opera, as the musical community in Vienna turned against him (which was why he chose Prague for the work's debut); on July 5 his first daughter died of scarlet fever; and, even as she lay on her deathbed, Mahler learnt that he was suffering from an incurable heart condition. Musicologists surmise that this is why the optimism and cheerfulness of the Symphony was subsequently tempered by the small but significant revisions Mahler made in the years leading up to its première.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for 4 flutes (4th doubling piccolo 2), piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn, clarinet in E flat, 3 clarinets in A and B flat, bass clarinet in A and B-flat, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, baritone horn in B flat, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in B flat and F (1st doubling cornet in movement 5), 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam, cowbell, Tubular bells, glockenspiel, mandolin, guitar, 2 harps and strings.
As in some of his other symphonies (particularly his purely instrumental middle period, nos. 5, 6 and 7), Mahler's interest in non-standard instruments in the symphony orchestra is clearly shown in the scoring in this work, with usage of a tenor horn, cowbells, mandolin, and guitar.
A euphonium or trombone is sometimes used when a baritone horn is not available.

Structure

The work is in five movements:
#''Langsam - Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo'' (E minor, beginning B minor) - the first movement features the baritone horn (German ''tenorhorn'') playing the first melody. Because the tenor horn is not a standard orchestral instrument, a euphonium is sometimes used instead. This movement is in sonata form.
#''Nachtmusik I (Allegro Moderato)'' (C minor) - a musical recreation of Rembrandt’s Night Watch. Mahler had spent considerable time at the Rijksmuseum on his first trip to the Netherlands in 1904.
#''Scherzo (scattenhaft)'' (D minor) - Mahler marked this movement ''Schattenhaft'' (shadowy). While 'Scherzo' means 'Joke', this movement is remarkably gloomy and even grim. At one point, the strings are instructed to play pizzicato with the volume ''fffff'', with the footnote, ''pluck so hard that the strings hit the wood.''
#''Nachtmusik II (Andante Amoroso)'' (F major)
#''Rondo-Finale'' (C major) - the last movement has been seen by many as something of a let-down. It has been accused of superficiality, dodging questions set by the previous movements. Formally, it is a rondo that acts as the theme for a set of eight variations, capped off by a dramatic coda.
The duration of the symphony is around 80 minutes. There is, however, an exceptionally lengthy recording by Otto Klemperer, which is 100 minutes long. There exists as well a recording by Hermann Scherchen with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra that is about 65 minutes long.

The music

1st movement

The slow introduction to the massive 1st movement takes the form of a sorrowful aria given out by the melancholy tones of a tenor horn. The accompanimental rhythm was said to have been suggested to Mahler by the rowing of the oarsman on the lake at Maiernigg. Bitter and anguished cries emerge from various members of the woodwind and brass families (the Principal Trumpet in the orchestra for the work's première was said to have responded to someone who described the work as "beautiful" with the words; "I'd like to know what's beautiful about blowing away at a trumpet stopped up to high C sharp"), and after a passionate climax, the pace quickens and the music launches into a strangely confused dance - part-Viennese waltz, part-grotesque stomp, part militaristic march - which is countered by a wonderfully lyrical theme introduced by a pair of horns and featuring violins which sway and swoop in a movement that was clearly inspired by the wildlife and scenery of the Carinthian Mountains in summer. An abrupt return to the double basses heralds an inexorable build-up of passion which will not find its final resolution until the brisk and robust - but curiously bitter-sweet - march with which the movement ends.

2nd movement

Described as a "symphony within the symphony", the middle three movements of the Symphony represent a portrait of night and darkness. The 2nd movement opens with horns calling to each other across the mountain valleys in the gathering dusk. The first of the two "Nachtmusik" ("Night Music") movements, this is said to represent a "walk by night". Mahler compared it to Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch". Scampering woodwind pass off into the distance as the horns introduce a rich, somewhat bucolic theme, surrounded by dancing strings. The rural mood is heightened by a gentle, rustic dance - typical of Mahler at his most carefree and childlike - as well as by high fluttering woodwind bird-calls and the gentle clanking of distant cow-bells. At the end, the movement gradually descends into silence. Night has finally fallen.

3rd movement

There is an undercurrent of night about the spooky 3rd movement which is marked "Schattenhaft" ("shadowy"). Eerie timpani and low wind instruments set off on a decidedly threatening waltz, complete with unearthly woodwind shrieks and ghostly shimmerings from the basses. Curious instrumental effects give this movement a strongly nightmarish quality.

4th movement

The 4th movement (the second "Nachtmusik"), with its "amorous" marking and reduced instrumentation—trombones, tuba and trumpets silent and woodwinds reduced by half—has been described as "a long stretch of chamber music set amidst this huge orchestral work". A solo violin introduces the movement, while a horn solo above the gentle tones of a guitar and mandolin create a magical serenade character.

5th movement

Boisterous timpani, joined in the fray by blazing brass, set the scene for the riotous 5th movement. Here is quasi-film music, pomp and pageantry and great dramatic gestures all rolled into one "delightfully messy" (in the words of one American commentator) piece of orchestral display. There are parodies of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow, as well as of Mahler's own Fifth Symphony and the famous Lutheran Hymn Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott, not to mention other ironic and sarcastic references. Little wonder that of all the Symphony's movements this has come in for the greatest amount of criticism and puzzlement: its virtually unrelenting mood of celebration seems quite at odds with the dark character of the earlier movements - "a vigorous life-asserting pageant of Mahlerian blatancy", is how Michael Kennedy describes it. For his part Mahler described it simply as a depiction of "broad daylight" and the outrageously exuberant ending, with passing references to the very opening theme, seems to encapsulate the blazing brilliance of the noonday sun.

Critical analysis

The harmonic and stylistic structure of the piece may be viewed as a depiction of the journey from dusk till dawn. The piece evolves from uncertain and hesitant beginnings to an unequivocal C major finale, with its echoes of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger": indeed, at the premiere the overture to this opera was performed after the symphony.
This journey from night to day proceeds via an extraordinary third movement scherzo, marked "schattentaft" (shadowy), which may have been what prompted Schoenberg to become a particular champion of the work. There are certainly expressionistic features, notably harmonic instability and melodic neuroses, which prefigure Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, written only two years later.
The piece has several motifs in common with the sixth symphony, notably the juxtaposition of major with minor chords, the march figure of the first movement, and the use of cowbells within certain "pastoral" episodes.

Reception

Mahler conducted the premiere of his seventh symphony in Prague in 1908. A few weeks later he conducted it in Munich and the Netherlands. Both the audience and the performers at the première were confused by the work, and it was not well received. It remains one of Mahler's least appreciated works, often accused of incoherence.

Premières

★ World première: September 19, 1908, Prague, with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer.

★ English première: January 18, 1913, London, conducted by Henry Wood.

★ American première: April 15, 1921, Chicago, conducted by Frederick Stock.

Recordings

★ A recording of the symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, and the San Francisco Symphony won two Grammys for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Classical Album for their 2006 recording on the Orchestra's own label, SFS Media.

★ Michael Gielen, an experienced Austrian conductor, also recorded a Mahler cycle during 1990s.

★ Leonard Bernstein also conducted performances of the Mahler 7th in 1965.

Further reading

★ Extensive history and analysis by renowned Mahler scholar Henry Louis de La Grange