Just one day after the performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 “Tragic”, the famous Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaap van Zweden will return to the NFM to present Symphony No. 7 by this genius of late Romantic symphony during its second concert. The expression of this piece, although the time of its writing overlapped with creating Symphony No. 6, is completely different, much more joyful.
“This is my best work, full of cheerful character,” Mahler praised his composition. In the symphony, completed in 1906, he used the topos of night, which was extremely popular in 19th-century music. In choosing this reference, however, he was inspired as much by Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Thus, the two movements sketched by Mahler in the Alpine settlement of Maiernigg are entitled Nachtmusik, or “music of the night”. In the first one, it is hard not to hear the cries of night birds. Remaining in the darkness of nocturne associations, the composer instructed the middle scherzo to be played “shadowily”.
The piece is the peak of the colour explorations conducted by its composer. Here, he uses unusual methods of articulation, and – as in his other symphonies – introduces non-standard instruments to the orchestra: the tenor horn, which is more often associated with a brass band, the guitar, the mandolin and the shepherd’s bells. All these procedures force us to look at the five-movement structure as an experimental work, ahead of its time. The Seventh Symphony was first performed on 19 September 1908 in Prague. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra was led by the composer. The American premiere took place on 15 April 1921 in... Chicago. Of course, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was playing at the time. It was conducted by Frederick Stock, who during thirty-seven years of working with the Illinois musicians led them to the very top of their musical careers. “There was nothing that could have come from Mahler’s pen that they could not play,” the press wrote admiringly about the artists at the time.