Welcome to ‘Dodd’s Discoveries’, a review series from NativeDSD Senior Music Reviewer Bill Dodd. This series focuses on Bill’s latest selections, with new reviews regularly. And the best part… the albums featured in the most current review will be available at a reduced price! Click the button below to see all of Dodd’s Discoveries and to find the current album(s) on sale.
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Let’s talk about Mahler’s Symphony # 7. It’s quite different from Mahler’s other symphonies, and some feel that it is far from Mahler’s best effort. I disagree! Over the years I’ve become quite addicted to it. Here’s some of what I wrote about a year ago when featuring Ivan Fischer’s excellent recording:
“Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is often called his most enigmatic—a five-movement journey that seems to be more of a dream than a narrative—reality and illusion, light and shadow, sincerity and parody. There is great beauty, but also biting parody brought together in this remarkable symphony.” In other words, the Seventh gives us the impression that Mahler is pulling our leg!
NativeDSD has 5 recordings available of the Seventh. All are quite fine, and each is quite different from the others. Fischer shows more of the overt humor and theatrics of the work. His presentation is witty, colorful, and playful. Paavo Järvi reveals the humor and the unexpected qualities, but he doesn’t lean into them. His is more of a modernist puzzle than a mischievous nighttime adventure. The reading is brilliant, incisive, and rhythmically alive. He brings a cohesiveness to the Seventh that is very fine.
Do I have a favorite? The more I listen, the more I appreciate all the different performances. Same symphony, different approaches. Each brings something to Mahler’s Seventh, but this one is an outstanding performance, beautifully recorded.
Nicht zu ernst! Mahler’s 7th should never be TOO serious.
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