Symphony No. 7 in F Major

After his imposing Sixth Symphony, Glazunov waited for several years before embarking on its successor. Sometimes referred to as the “Pastoral”—not least because its home key is also that of Beethoven’s Sixth—the Seventh Symphony (1902) is the most understated of his later works in this genre, but perhaps his most immediately attractive. Not least the opening "Allegro moderato", with its amiable succession of themes and its characterful woodwind writing, followed by an "Andante" with a lilting main melody of appealing pathos. The outer sections of the "Scherzo" have a deftness that recalls Mendelssohn, albeit tinged with the exoticism of Russian folk music, and though the final "Allegro maestoso" pursues a more heroic manner that seems surprising in context, it carries the whole work to a powerfully affirmative close. Dedicated to the influential philanthropist and publisher Mitrofan Belyayev, whose support had launched the composer’s career two decades earlier, it duly consolidated Glazunov’s standing in Europe and America.