Nelsons Andris © Marco Borggreve
Wiener Philharmoniker / Nelsons
Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 7
Tuesday
17
January
2023
19:30
Großer Saal
Presented by
Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft
Boat trip or night hike?
The brilliant idea came to him during a boat trip on Lake Wörthersee. Gustav Mahler had struggled for a long time beforehand with the composition of his Seventh Symphony, which did not really want to progress, but: »At the first stroke of the oar, the theme (or rather the rhythm and style) of the introduction to the first movement came to me - and in four weeks, the first, third and fifth movements were fixed and ready«, as can be read in his »Erinnerungen«. The fact that the work was later often referred to as »Nachtwanderung« is due to the fact that Mahler grouped it around two »Nachtmusiken«, in which he had in mind »Eichendorffian visions« and »rippling fountains, German Romanticism«, supported sonically by the use of guitar and mandolin, among other things. The Seventh is heard less frequently than other Mahler symphonies. All the more eagerly you may now expect it in the interpretation of Andris Nelsons, who is said to »kiss awake a long dormant score like a fairy tale prince and bring it to the present«, that he presents compositions as organically living entities (Süddeutsche Zeitung). He has already proven many times that he knows how to work brilliantly with the Vienna Philharmonic.