The energetic leading theme of the Allegro con fuoco first movement (after the long slow introduction) recalls the ominous march-tune which opens the Sixth the cowbells and ‘fateful’ major–minor chord progression in the first Nachtmusik (‘Night-music’) movement also echo No 6. The first two movements glance backwards to the tragic Sixth Symphony. There are other ways in which the Seventh Symphony seems to be strangely divided. The middle three movements, it is said, seem to belong to a world of their own – nocturnal, fantastic, sometimes sinister – a world to which the outer movements, impressive as they are, emphatically do not belong. But few others have used phrases like ‘perfect repose’ to describe the Seventh Symphony – and even some of Mahler’s most passionate admirers have found the structure anything but harmonious. When Schoenberg heard the Symphony in 1909 (the year after the first performance), he wrote enthusiastically of its ‘perfect repose based on perfect harmony’. For decades, Mahler’s Seventh has been his ‘problem symphony’ – the Cinderella of the cycle.
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