The HRO's Visitas Weekend Concert

The Symphony No. 7 by Gustav Mahler was written in 1904–05, with repeated revisions to the scoring. This five movement piece is sometimes referred to by the title Song of the Night (German: Lied der Nacht), which Mahler never knew.[1] Although the symphony is often described as being in the key of E minor, its tonal scheme is more complicated. The symphony's first movement moves from B minor (introduction) to E minor, and the work ends with a rondofinale in C major.[2] Thus, as Dika Newlin has pointed out, "in this symphony Mahler returns to the ideal of 'progressive tonality' which he had abandoned in the Sixth".[3] The complexity of the work's tonal scheme was analysed in terms of "interlocking structures" by Graham George.[4]

The harmonic and stylistic structure of the piece may be viewed as a depiction of the journey from dusk till dawn.[17] The piece evolves from uncertain and hesitant beginnings to an unequivocal C major finale, with its echoes of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: indeed, at the premiere the overture to this…