FRSO & Tugan Sohijev

Composing gave Gustav Mahler many a headache in summer 1905. Two movements of his new symphony were ready and waiting, but however hard he tried, he couldn’t get the first bars down on paper. One day, he decided to take the rowing boat out on the lake by his summer villa. The sound of the oar as it hit the water transformed itself into the hypnotic rhythm of the main theme of the first movement. By mid-August, he had finished his seventh symphony.