A work bursting from open to close with imagery and energy of the natural world, Mahler’s 7th Symphony (often subtitled Song of the Night) has long puzzled critics, even as it has delighted audiences from its first performance.

The opening music, describing the ‘mood and character’ of a boat journey on an Alpine lake, begins with grand and ominous weight. Contrastingly, the middle section contains three movements – two marked Nachtmusik (Night Music) and one marked Shadowy, from which the piece gets its subtitle.

A finale bursting with energy and brightness rounds off one of the composer’s finest and most imaginative works.

Pairing this journey from dusk to dawn, the orchestra opens with Antonín Dvořák’s early Serenade for String Orchestra. As in Mahler’s symphony, the serenade form suggests romanticism and nocturnal intimacy in one of Dvořák’s finest early works, full of the lyricism and boisterous energy with which the composer would much later be associated in works like his New World symphony.