When he wrote his Symphony No.7, Gustav Mahler had already made a name for himself as conductor and composer. Life was comfortable, and he enjoyed a full family life with his wife and beloved daughter. However, between the three years that separate the symphony’s completion and its premiere, Mahler suffered professional ostracization, his daughter’s death from scarlet fever and his own diagnosis of a life-threatening heart disease. Under the shadow of these misfortunes, Mahler revised the symphony, recasting the middle-movement Nachtmusik with a sense of impending gloom. Breaking barriers in symphonic technique, the work reflects the struggle of man in the face of unpredictable fate.