Yannick Leads Mahler’s Symphony No. 7

It would be several years from the time Mahler completed his Seventh Symphony to its first performance, the delay occasioned at least in part by Mahler’s own anxiety about the work, which had to do with what he feared critics might consider its then unconventional style. In the days before its first performance, Mahler gathered musical friends and colleagues around him, who helped to copy the parts of the score, even as he made constant changes up until the very last moment. His fears were realized when the turn-of-the-century audience failed to grasp the genius and beauty of the work, confused by its departure from more Classical forms. Led in part by passionate proponents of Mahler like Leonard Bernstein, who fell in love with the Seventh, a work of “emotional extravagance and instrumental exuberance” (The New York Times), 20th-century audiences would embrace this piece, which has become a standard of the repertoire—a must-hear for any music lover.