History Symphony No. 7

Composed

• Year 1904.
• Year 1905.

Performances by Gustav Mahler

• 1908 Concert Prague 19-09-1908 – Symphony No. 7 (Premiere).
• 1908 Concert Munich 27-10-1908 – Symphony No. 7.
• 1909 Concert The Hague 02-10-1909 – Symphony No. 7.
• 1909 Concert Amsterdam 03-10-1909 – Symphony No. 7.
• 1909 Concert Amsterdam 07-10-1909 – Symphony No. 7.

Versions

• 00-00-1904 Maiernigg: Summer. Start composing two Andantes in the summer. ‘Bauskizzen’. 
• 00-00-1904 Maiernigg: Sketches Movement 2: Nachtmusik. Allegro moderato. 
• 00-00-1904 Maiernigg: Sketches Movement 4: Nachtmusik. Andante amoroso. 
• 15-07-1905 Maiernigg: Start composing the other three movements. 
• 15-08-1905 Maiernigg: Movement 1: Langsam (Adagio) – Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo. Draft finished.
• 15-08-1905 Maiernigg: Movement 3: Scherzo. Schattenhaft finished.
• 15-08-1905 Maiernigg: Movement 5: Rondo-Finale finished
• 00-08-1905 Vienna: At the end of the holidays, Mahler took the manuscript back to vienna and wrote the autograph fair copy during the Year 1905/Year 1906 theater season. 1898-1909 House Gustav Mahler Vienna – Auenbruggergasse No. 2.
• 00-00-1906 Orchestration.
• 00-00-1907 Mahler had to resign his conductorship of the Vienna State Opera, his first daughter Maria Anna Mahler (Putzi) (1902-1907) died and he learned 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 premiere. 
• 00-00-1907 Revision.
• 00-03-1907 According to Alma Mahler he took the sketches with him to Rome to continue his work.
• 00-00-1908 Revision.
• 00-00-1908 Vienna: Copyist Emil Zöphel was entrusted with the score for the purpose of making a copy that was to be used for engraving.
• 00-00-1908 Vienna: Peters music publishers turned it down  bacause the sum demanded by mahler was too high. Oskar Fried (1871-1941) advised Laterbach & Kuhne. towards the end of 1908 Laterbach & Kuhne was taken over by Bote & Bock music publishers from Berlin.
• 05-09-1908 Prague: Arrival of Gustav Mahler for about a dozen the rehearsals. At the same time he needed to collect the hand written parts. The noise and the hubbub in the festival city and Hotel Blue Star annoyed him and his dramatic descriptions reveal that conditions in the orchestra and concert hall (Exhibition Concert Hall) failed to live up to his requirements: ‘I have to … figure out how to turn a sausage pan into a kettledrum, a rusty watering can into a trumpet, and a wine tavern into a concert venue’. The concert hall also served as a restaurant, which created an even greater disturbance during rehearsals.
• 18-09-1908 Prague: General rehearsal at 12:00 am.
• 19-09-1908 Prague: Premiere. 1908 Concert Prague 19-09-1908 – Symphony No. 7 (Premiere). Three years after the completion.
• 19-09-1908 Prague: Review in Prager Tagblatt 19-09-1908 by Richard Batka (1868-1922). Etc.
• 20-09-1908 Vienna: Positive review in Prager Tagblatt by Richard Batka (1868-1922) and Neue Freie Presse by Richard Specht (1870-1932).
• 27-10-1908 Munich: 1908 Concert Munich 27-10-1908 – Symphony No. 7. Audience was enthusiastic, but the reviewers were not.
• 21-09-1909 Amsterdam: Start Pre-rehearsals Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) by Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951).
• 27-09-1909 Amsterdam: Arrival Mahler in Amsterdam.
• 28-09-1909 Amsterdam: In the morning first rehearsals conducted by Gustav Mahler.
• 02-10-1909 The Hague: 1909 Concert The Hague 02-10-1909 – Symphony No. 7.
• 03-10-1909 Amsterdam: 1909 Concert Amsterdam 03-10-1909 – Symphony No. 7. 
• 07-10-1909 Amsterdam: 1909 Concert Amsterdam 07-10-1909 – Symphony No. 7. The concerts were hugely successful, and they were the last performances of this symphony with Mahler at the help.
• 03-11-1909 Vienna: First performance in Vienna, conducted by Ferdinand Lowe (1863-1925). Orchestra Wiener Concertverein (predecessor of the Vienna Symphony), in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Mahler was in New York. Julius Korngold was baffled, Robert Hirschfeld (1858-1914) hostile. Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) attended the performance and sent 29-12-1909 a letter to Mahler in New York about it. He was very positive and wrote: ‘I am now really and entirely yours’.
• 00-11-1909 Berlin: The first edition of the (conductor) score was finally published by Bote & Bock music publishers. More than a year after the premiere. Plate 16867.
• 00-12-1909 Berlin: The first edition of the (study) score was finally published by Bote & Bock music publishers. More than a year after the premiere. Plate 16867.
• 00-00-1910 Berlin: The first edition of the (orchestral) score was finally published by Bote & Bock music publishers. No plate number.
• 00-00-1910 Berlin: Arrangement for piano four hands by Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) and Bote & Bock music publishers. Plate 16869.
• 08-06-1910 Vienna: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)‘s most revealing comment about Symphony No. 7 is in a letter on 08-06-1910 to Alma Mahler (1879-1964) in which he mentions how the Symphony 8 was written in great speed in summer Year 1906. He continues: ‘The previous summer (Year 1905) I’d been intending to complete the 7th (of which the two Andantes were already finished). For two weeks I plagued myself to desperation, as you surely recall – and finally I made off for the Dolomites. But there it was the same story. Finally I gave up and drove home, convinced that the summer had been wasted. You weren’t waiting for me at Krumpendorf because I hadn’t announced my arrival. I got into the boat to be ferried across. At the sound of oars plying through water I was suddenly inspired to the theme (or rather the rhythm and atmosphere) of the introduction of the first movement – and within four weeks the first, third and fifth movements were completely finished’.
• 00-00-1910 Edition for piano made by the Italian composer Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) and published in 1910. 
• 23-01-1911 Berlin: Last performance of Symphony No. 7 during Mahlers lifetime. Conducted by Oskar Fried (1871-1941).
• 18-01-1913 London: British premiere, conducted by Henry Wood.
• 09-05-1920 Amsterdam: Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw.  Sunday. In the morning a aubade in front of House Willem Mengelberg. Mengelberg and his wife at the balcony with Antonie Roell (1864-1940), Richard van Rees (1853-1939), Charles Ernest Henri Boissevain (1868-1940), Hendrik Jan de Marez Oyens (1843-1911), Jo Beukers-van Ogtrop (1865-1948) and later also Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Anna Justine Mahler (Gucki) (1904-1988). Alma Mahler (1879-1964) gave the Manuscript Symphony No. 7 as a present to Mengelberg. Rainy. Afterwards he invited the musicians to come upstairs to have a drink. Alma Mahler (1879-1964) went to the Amsterdam railway station for the arrival of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and to bring him to Mengelberg.
• 15-04-1921 Chicago: American premiere, conducted by Frederick Stock.
• 26-04-1937 Berlin: Second publication by Bote & Bock music publishers.
• 00-05-1960 Berlin: Critical edition by Erwin Ratz and Bote & Bock music publishers. Plate 16867.
• 00-00-2008 Berlin: New critical edition by Reinhold Kubik and Bote & Bock music publishers. No plate number.
• 00-00-2012 Berlin: Publication by Boosey & Hawkes Bote & Bock music publishers. Universal Edition (UE) music publishers. Plate 36510. UE 36 510
• Draft score in Bruno Walter (1876-1962).

Structure

• Movement 1: Langsam (Adagio) – Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo 25.00
• Movement 2: Nachtmusik. Allegro moderato 16.00
• Movement 3: Scherzo. Schattenhaft 11.00
• Movement 4: Nachtmusik. Andante amoroso 14.00
• Movement 5: Rondo-Finale 19.00
• Total duration 1.25.00

Year 1908. Letter by Gustav Mahler to Emil Gutmann (1877-1920), outlining plans for a concert in Munich: “Two circumstances are the main ones that make your proposition unacceptable. 1. The 5th of November does not suit me (because of my preparation for the trip to America – I have to embark on the 10th in Hamburg, and have important things to get before.) The 2nd of November would be the latest date for a concert to have in Munich would be – 2. I have left all my orchestral material in Hamburg and therefore I am not able to make a classical program, for which I absolutely need my retouchings with my changes. A symphony of mine with only 3 rehearsals is impossible.” 1908 Concert Munich 27-10-1908 – Symphony No. 7.

Year 1908. 1908 Concert Munich 27-10-1908 – Symphony No. 7.

03-11-1909 First performance in Vienna. Conductor Ferdinand Lowe (1863-1925).

Publications

Ernst Eulenburg (and G. Bote, Berlin), Leipzig and Vienna, score Symphony No. 7.

Ernst Eulenburg (and G. Bode, Berlin), Leipzig and Vienna, score Symphony No. 7. Plate E.E. 3669 EE.

Ed. Bote (Berlin), score Symphony No. 7.

1910. Alfred Roller (1864-1935), the celebrated stage designer and frequent collaborator with Mahler at the Vienna State Opera (Hofoper, Wiener Staatsoper), was responsible for the designing the cover of the published score. He also designed the title page. The illustration shows the title page as it appears in the edition for piano made by the Italian composer Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) and published in 1910. 

26-04-1937. Berlin: Second publication by Bote & Bock music publishers. An original signed document by Alma Mahler (1879-1964) regarding the expired copyright to her husband’s Seventh Symphony. The short typed document declares Alma Mahler’s consent for the expired copyright to the work to be renewed by the publishers, Ed. Bote & G. Bock of Berlin, and for the rights to the work to be set according to the two parties’ previous agreement. She has signed boldly at the foot in purple ink. Stamped with the date at the upper left: April 26, 1937. Folds, paper clip mark in the upper left corner, else very good. 8.25 x 11.75 inches (21 x 29.7 cm). Signed in 1931-1945 House Alma Mahler Vienna – Steinfeldgasse No. 2.

26-04-1937. Berlin: Second publication by Bote & Bock music publishers.