Simon Rattle conducts Mahler's Seventh Symphony

Released one week after his seventieth birthday, Simon Rattle's latest recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra on the orchestra's own label continues his revisiting of the Mahler symphonies. After No. 6 last year and an exceptional No. 9 back in 2022 comes this new performance of Symphony No. 7, recorded live in November 2024.

I always feel that when it comes to the Seventh, the first movement can be a tricky one to judge in terms of making the tempo relationships seem natural and unforced, and as far as I'm concerned Rattle gets all of them just right. The central section of this movement, with its collection of gentle trumpet fanfares, is nicely atmospheric and also neatly highlights what for me is one of the most successful aspects of this performance, namely the consistently characterful woodwind playing. Mahler asks multiple times for these evocative trumpet calls to be rudely interrupted by a mockingly impertinent clarinet, and it's little touches like this to which Rattle pays great attention.

This is further evident in the central Scherzo: marked "shadowy", it's full of grotesque, nightmarish gestures, from the ghoulish glissandos of the clarinets and violins, to the plaintive wails of the oboes and ligneous grunts and wheezes from bassoons. This movement also shows off the level of detail that the recording engineers were able to capture, not least the vivid presence of the violin and viola solos, whilst the diabolically whirling triplets and spiky, brittle pizzicatos from the strings all come across with great clarity. Speaking of pizzicatos, I knew it was coming but I still jumped at the skeletal thwack of the "snap" pizzicato from cellos and basses (whereby the string is plucked so hard that it hits the wood of the instrument - more commonly referred to as a "Bartók pizzicato" after that composer's extensive use of the technique, even though Mahler used it here first!).

Any caveats? Well, there were occasional moments where I felt the brass were perhaps placed somewhat conservatively in the balance, most notably ten bars from the end where I would have hoped for the horns' final jubilant exhortation to ring out more (to be fair this is compensated for by the enthusiastically euphoric peals from bells and cowbells!). Mind you, I'm a brass player myself so maybe I'm just being greedy... On the other hand, the opening tenor horn solo is pleasingly portentous and full-bodied (complying with Mahler's instruction for "grosser Ton!"), as is the bass trombone solo later in the first movement, which resonates with a lofty, commanding sonority.

This very minor quibble aside, the undoubted stars of the show are the magnificent trumpet section, who are stunning and faultless throughout, from their aforementioned soft playing in the first movement to the enormous input they provide towards the thrill and excitement of the fifth movement, all three of them fearlessly leaping up to their top Cs one after another with pinpoint precision.

It's fascinating to observe how a conductor's reading of a piece can grow and mature through the decades, and certainly relative to his earlier accounts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker, I would say this is easily the most impressive of Rattle's thoughts on this enigmatic symphony. It's also interesting to compare it with Bernard Haitink's recording with the same orchestra, particularly in terms of tempo where Rattle shaves six minutes off Haitink's time (his final movement clocks in at over two minutes faster). While it may be argued that this urgency causes both Nachtmusik movements to tend towards the swift side, I feel that this driven, purposeful approach enables Rattle to elucidate and make sense of the symphony's long structures, culminating in a satisfying conclusion.