The Song of the (Unsettled) Night
Mahler’s rarely heard Seventh is for many an ugly duckling, but for others a connoisseur’s delight. For 84 minutes his giant forces hammer away, reflecting I believe the foment of the times (1905) and the breakdown of the old world order. Here Mahler puts aside his elegant opera-night chapeau and gets into the sonic nitty-gritty, bristling with abrasive exuberance while falling in love with dissonance and inner-orchestral conflicts. The Viennese composer is troubled, he is pessimistic, he unreels those dour…