Symphony No. 7 (Mahler)

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Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony was written from 1904 to 1906. It is sometimes referred to by the nickname The Song of the Night (German: Lied der Nacht), which wasn't given by Mahler and which he did not approve. This nickname, though, is not as commonly known as those of other Mahler symphonies – Titan for the First Symphony, Resurrection (Auferstehung) for the Second, Tragic (Tragische) for the Sixth and Symphony of a Thousand (Sinfonie der Tausend) for the Eighth.

Contents 1 Background 2 Instrumentation 3 Structure 4 The music 4.1 1st movement 4.2 2nd movement 4.3 3rd movement 4.4 4th movement 4.5 5th movement 5 Critical analysis 6 Reception 7 Premières 8 Recordings 9 References 10 Further reading

[edit] 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 Maiernigg in the Carinthian Mountains, he finished the Sixth Symphony and sketched the second and fourth movements (the 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 finished in 1906; he laid the Seventh aside to make small changes to the orchestration of the Sixth, while rehearsing for its première in May 1906. The Seventh, by its turn, had its première 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.

[edit] 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, tenor horn in B flat (a euphonium or trombone is sometimes used when the tenor horn is not available), 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, cowbells, rutes, 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.

[edit] Structure

The work is in five movements:

1. Langsam – Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo (E minor, beginning B minor);
2. Nachtmusik (I): Allegro moderato. Molto moderato (Andante) (C minor);
3. Scherzo: Schattenhaft. Fließend aber nicht schnell (D minor) - The German marking means Shadowy. Flowing but not fast;
4. Nachtmusik (II): Andante amoroso (F major)
5. Rondo-Finale (C major).

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.

[edit] The music

[edit] 1st movement

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The movement is in sonata form. It begins with a slow introduction, launched by a dark melody played by a baritone horn (German Tenorhorn). 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 and lead to a passionate climax. (The principal trumpet in the orchestra for the work's première even confronted Mahler, saying "I'd just like to know what's beautiful about blowing away at a trumpet stopped up to high C-sharp" Mahler did not answer, but later pointed out to Alma that the man did not understand the agony of Mahler's existence.^[1]) The pace quickens and the music launches into a strangely confused dance—part Viennese waltz, part grotesque stomp, and part militaristic march—which yields to a lyrical theme introduced by a pair of horns. The swaying and swooping of the violins in this section was inspired by the wildlife and scenery of the Corinthian Mountains in summer. An abrupt return to the double basses heralds an inexorable build-up of passion which only finds its final resolution in the brisk and robust—but curiously bitter-sweet—march with which the movement ends.

[edit] 2nd movement

Described as a "symphony within the symphony", the middle three movements of the Symphony represent a portrait of night and darkness. The second 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", and could represent a musical recreation of Rembrandt’s Night Watch, which impressed Mahler; he had spent considerable time at the Rijksmuseum on his first trip to the Netherlands in 1904. Mahler, however, described the movement in more vague terms ^[2]. 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.

[edit] 3rd movement

There is an undercurrent of night about the spooky third movement; while Scherzo means 'joke', this movement is remarkably gloomy and even grim. Eerie timpani and low wind instruments set off on a threatening waltz, complete with unearthly woodwind shrieks and ghostly shimmerings from the basses. 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. Curious instrumental effects give this movement a strongly nightmarish quality.

[edit] 4th movement

The fourth movement (the second "Nachtmusik"), with its "amorous" marking and reduced instrumentation—trombones, tuba and trumpets are 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.

[edit] 5th movement

Boisterous timpani, joined in the fray by blazing brass, set the scene for the riotous fifth movement. Here is quasi-film music, pomp and pageantry and great dramatic gestures all rolled into a piece that demands intense orchestral display. Formally, the movement is a rondo that acts as the theme for a set of eight variations, capped off by a dramatic coda. There are parodies of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow^[3], 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 (it has been seen by many as something of a let-down and somewhat superficial, dodging questions set by the previous movements): 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.

[edit] 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 schattenhaft (shadowy), which may have been what prompted Arnold 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 abundance of themes based upon the interval of a fourth likewise has parallels with the First Chamber Symphony.

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.

[edit] 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.^[4] It remains one of Mahler's least appreciated works, often accused of incoherence.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 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.

[edit] Recordings

• A recording of the symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, and the San Francisco Symphony won two Grammy Awards 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 conducted performances of the Mahler 7th in 1965 with the New York Philharmonic, which he recorded. He recorded it two other times - with the New York Philharmonic in 1986, and also on DVD in the 1980s with the Vienna Philharmonic.
• Claudio Abbado has also recorded the symphony twice - first with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the studio in 1984, and then live with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001.
• Rafael Kubelik recorded it in 1970 as part of his complete cycle with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.cso.org/main.taf?p=5,5,5,11 Program notes to a performance of the symphony by the Chicago Symphony, written by Phillip Huscher.
2. ^ http://www.andante.com/profiles/Mahler/symph7.cfm Mahler Symphony No. 7 at andante.com
3. ^ James, Burnett (1985). The Music of Gustav Mahler. London: Associated University Press. ISBN 0-8386-3167-3
4. ^ http://www.andante.com/profiles/Mahler/symph7.cfm Mahler Symphony No. 7 at andante.com

[edit] Further reading

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

v • d • e Symphonies by Gustav Mahler No. 1 in D major (Titan) · No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection) · No. 3 in D minor · No. 4 in G major · No. 5 in C sharp minor · No. 6 in A minor · No. 7 in E minor · No. 8 in E flat major (Symphony of a Thousand) · No. 9 in D major · Das Lied von der Erde No. 10 (unfinished)