Luogo e data di registrazione		Alte Oper, Frankfurt (Germania) - 14/17 maggio 1986
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Direction		Yoshiharu Kawaguchi (DENON / Nippon Columbia), Richard Hauck (Hessischer Rndfunk)
	Recording Engineer		Peter Willemoës (DENON / Nippon Columbia), Detlev Kittler (Hessischer Rundfunk)
	Mixing Engineer		Norio Okada (DENON / Nippon Columbia)
	Technology		Yukio Takahashi (DENON / Nippon Columbia)
	Editing		Genichi Kitami
	Edition		BOTE & BOCK
	Edizione CD		Denon | 60CO-1553-54 | (2 CD's) | durata 37' 14" - 40' 15" | (p) 1987.6 | DDD
	Note		Special Thanks to: Brüel & Kjær. Co-production with Hessischer Rundfunk.

With the completion of the 7th symphony in 1905 the symphonic trias of thc “middle” Mahler has come to an end. The 5th, 6th and 7th symphony form a group of works that belong to each other very closely in so far, as they all lack the use of vocal means and as they are all based on the principle of formal discipline. In contrast to the ethic-metaphysical subject of the first symphonies, they have turned away from a programmatic concept and are basically conceived by musical impulses, i.e, Mahler has not composed them on the basis of a non-musical programme, nor has he given any clues as to the contents of the syrnphonies afterwards. One main feature of the middle symphonic style is the extraordinary polyphonic conception of the movements, as we can see in the first and last movement of the 7th symphony. This polyphony shows Mahler`s eventual breaking-away from the sonorous conception of a piano partition. In the beginning he considered a work as finished, when he had written a final draft that was playable on a piano. But now, orchestral sonorities in their instrumental individuality have come to a structural meaning for Mahler, they-now form a part of the compositional conception of a work. For example, the score of the 6th demands unusual additional instruments, such as chimes, celesta, rod and of course the legendary hammer. In addition to that Mahler makes use of the tenor horn for the sad, cornplainting introductionary theme of the first movement and stresses the serenade-like character of the second night-music by using a mandoline and a guitar. So it is not the usual way of using instruments that is in command of his instrumentation, but only the intention of char acterizing a certain expression or sonority. In the beginning his new polyphonic way of composing aroused some problems for Mahler. In order to achieve the maximal transparency of his often very complex voice leading, Mahler was now bound to hear an actual performance more than ever and was only able to write out the final instrumentation after several rehearsals. For the first performance of the 7th in Prague he demanded more than 20 rehearsals, took the score into the hotel and tried to improve it step by step, "At that time, changes in the score were done relentlessly", says his wife Alma. "Of course it was only the instrumentation that concerned him. The composition itself was never touched. Since his fifth symphony every performance brought about at great deal of rewriting of the instruntcntation. Again and again he changed his 6th and 7th symphony. It was a turning point. It was not until his 8th that he was completely certain of himself". As Alma reports, Mahler wrote down his 7th "in one breath" during the summer holidays of 1905. Already the year before the sketches of the two parts of the night-music have come to life. The first, third and fifth movement have been composed directly after he had finished the instrumentation of the 6th. Thus the conceptional relationship between 6th and 7th symphony shows quite some resemblance and they have even influenced each other with respect to the compositional work. In addition to having been composed at about the same time they show up extraordinary resemblance concerning thematic and instrumental symbolic features: The pessimistic major-minor chord, which can be found as a Leitmotif in the tragic 6th, is also existent in the 7th, even frequently in its reversal, the minor-major chord, as well as the bells, which supposedly represent his fixation for the landscape of the Alps. In contrast to the 6th, the 7th symphony however is the picture of a “return to life". Even if the first movement with its pitiful complaint of the tenor horn shows a connection to the pessimism of the 6th, it nevertheless develops a character towards a positive attitude to life. In this process we can find heavy-weighted harmonic fights and shrill, dissonant intervals, to which we learn the following from an analysis of Paul Bekker, dated 1921: "In this context the hurting of a normal feeling for harmonies is an absolute intention. The ruthlessness towards harmony is pushed to the point, where it seems almost unbearable". After huge dynamic gradations the movement develops into a tremendous E-major Stretta. By this Mahler accomplishes an alternative to fate, a variation that turns to the positive and thus contrasts the 6th. The 7th is the most symmetric of all Mahlers symphonies. Between the two parts of the night-music, which were the first part of the symphony to be composed, we can find a Scherzo, designated "Shadow-like", standing in the centre of the symphonic disposition. These three parts, almost like chamber music in their instrumentation, are contrasted by the first and last movement with their huge disposition and their monumental instrumentation. The arrangement of the five movements is not based on a dramatic conception, but resembles a static system of balance, in which the three central movements form a unity in themselves, a kind of "symphony in the symphony", as the Richard Specht, Mahler’s biographer used to call it: "An island of dreams". In them we can find the romantic Mahler, who already seemed so far away and gives us quite some interesting hints on Mahler’s personality. In these three night-pieces we can find the emotional intensity of an era that has passed by long ago. The entire thematic material of the first night-music stands in close relationship to the hidden and sad march-rhythm of some of the “Wunderhorn” songs: For the last time Mahler makes a quotation of these songs, which were the actual starting point of all his symphonic works up to the fourth symphony. The bell and the constant change of major and minor tonality nevertheless show the close affinity of the Fifth. The instrumental colour of the second night-music (Andante Amoroso) reminds the listener of a serenade. Actually the movement makes very sparingly use of a mandoline and a guitar. The harp completes the group of instruments that we associate with the term “Serenade”. Yet these two parts of the night-music have no rcal connection to any of the forms. Nocturne or Serenade; they can actually be considered as lyric, imaginative visions. Alma reports that Mahler thought of “Eichendorffsche Visionen”, when he was composing the two parts of the night-music: "splashing fountains, German romanticism". They are visionary pictures full of magic sonorities, Intermezzi with a dreamlike character. Between them stands the Scherzo. With the designation of this movement "Shadowlike", Mahler expressed everything that could be said about this movement with its desperate sonorities and perpetuum-mobile-like rhythm. It is a spooky, demonic intermezzo, a night-picce, being grotesquely distorted. “Those three night-pieces,” thus Paul Bekker, “which show the magic and frightful impact of darkness, are surrounded by two day-pieces full of brightness. The first movement is the glowing light that breaks through the longing dawn to clarity and the Finale is the bright day. Both movements are the apotheosis of dionisistic thinking.” It is not only their character that makes them belong together, it is also the thematic connection of these two movements that is quite obvious. The main theme of the first movement is transformed into the driving force in the last part of the fifth movement and in the end it glows with overwhelming brightness. The contrast of brightness and darkness is the concept of the entire work. Sometimes it is of uprising joy, but then again it is characterized by introverted and dreamy silence or fantastic nervousness. Fights are not only fought, - the contrasts are really put side by side. Here we have the two frame-movements, light-hearted and victorious without resistance, facts of ever moving life. Yet on the other hand we have those three middle movements, mysterious, nervous and stormy, characterized by the ambiguity of feelings. Mahler does not try to find any balance, which would actually have been outside of the idea and the conception of the work. In contrast to the first movement, which is composed according to an interior continuity, the Rondo-Finale has a total lack of such a continuity. The main feature of this movement is the diversity of themes, which has only little resemblance to the traditional definition of polyphony, for Mahler not only makes use of many different voices, he lifts these voices up to a higher level of independence. “In order to describe those instrumental lines that push forward, pull at each other, melt with each other and spread up again and again, we would need a more appropriate and understandable musicological terrninology." explains Kurt Blaukopf. "We have to help ourselves with examples from optical science: Mahler`s complex polyphony has a certain quality that could be compared with a collage. In this acoustic collage the lines with their different colours seem to be put together to a symphonic unity". Already in 1900 Mahler had explained this theory to his friends, when they passed a fun-fair, on which the sound of swings, roundabouts and shooting-ranges mixed with the music of a brass band and a choir: “Don’t you hear it? This is polyphony and is this exactly, where I got it from! Already in my childhood in the Iglauer Wald this was so fascinating to me, for it does not matter, whether it is such a noise or the singing of thousands of birds, the howling of a storm, the splashing of waves or the crackling of a fireplace. From all sides the themes have to come and they have to be totally different in rhythm and melody (everything else is just disguised homophony): Only the artist is to assemble them to a perfect unity.” Andreas Maul All but some parts of this recording, where the output of assistant microphones were mixed in a digital time delay alignment, was made using just two Brüel & Kjær 4006 microphones.