The Symphony No. 7 in F major, Op. 77, from 1902 by Alexander Glazunov is his most purposefully Germanic symphony. Called the "Pastoral'naya" (Pastoral), the Seventh from the start evokes the bucolic images of Beethoven's own F major pastoral symphony and indeed all of the F major pastoral works in the German canon. But beyond those deliberate references, the Seventh is wholly Glazunov's own: even in the austerely archaic Andante, the tone of the work is overwhelmingly positive and its goals almost always confidently attained. Like Glazunov's earlier symphonies, the Seventh combines Western forms with Russian content—even the piping shepherds of the opening movement have a Russian accent—but the Seventh more than any of its predecessors shows evidence of Glazunov's burgeoning interest in counterpoint. The development section of the opening movement and the string writing in the Andante are clearly linear in inspiration. For all its compositional mastery, however, the Seventh shows signs of decline in its concluding two movements. After the brilliant Scherzos of the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, the Allegro giocoso Scherzo of the Seventh seems pro forma in its jollity. And after the triumphal conclusions of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, the rejoicing of the Seventh's Allegro maestoso Finale seems less convinced of its own success: the fierce central development seems more like an episode than an integrated part of the whole and the cymbals and triangle at the close seem predictably celebratory.

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