Mahler: Symphony No. 7 - II. Nachtmusik: Allegro moderato. Molto moderato (Andante)

this movement is in c minor but floats in between that and c major so often that it wouldn't be completely wrong to say it was in c major.
the first of two "nachtmusik"s, this is the spookier one; a bit darker, having the mood of a quiet march (he described it as a depiction of an evening patrol).

we begin with a horn call which rises majestically like the moon over winds giving swirling bird calls and more crawling figures which might depict some of the other things moving about in the night. eventually the horns get to state a full sentence of their theme, one of the best, i think, that mahler ever wrote. i really like how it switches back and forth on a dime, between minor and major. the tattoo that gets iterated underneath it is quiet but very marchlike, true to the image.

3:49 marks the second theme in a-flat major, a sudden departure into a fast waltz like melody and lyricism which occasionally throws in some of the heavily dotted figures from the march, but overall maintains the broadness and loveliness of some of his most pastoral work. at 5:35 he brings an extended, improvisatory sounding version of the opening horn call, and even throws the cowbells in here for good measure.

at 6:35, the opening horn melody comes back, and we repeat some of the exposition before departing into a development of sorts. with a pluck of the harp and strings and some swirling trills in the winds, the oboe introduces a wistfully dancelike c minoir figure which dominates this middle section; this gets woven in with lots of motifs from the opening, until it climaxes like the chattering of night creatures reaching its apex. it spills over and seems also to disappear into nothing.

with that, we return to the wistful figures of the beginning of the development, but now transformed into a duet for two celli. this is one of my favorite moments of the entire symphony.
two plucks of the harp bring us to a standstill and then we begin a climb back to the recapitulation, which blooms at 1:45.
3:33 is the equivalent of the waltzlike second theme. except here he turns it into a sort of carnival feeling atmosphere, throwing in xylophone and cowbell. around 5:15 this becomes meshed into the march.

the movement ends quietly, with a smattering of pizz and a g harmonic from celli and harp, leaving it ambiguous as to whether it concludes in major or minor.