The first time I heard the Seventh was at the RFH in 1977. Riccardo Muti was the conductor (he's no longer the young buck he was then!) The other bits of the concert consisted of Stravinsky's Fairy's Kiss and, I think, Jessye Norman singing Strauss's Four Last Songs. I absolutely didn't get any of that first half, my severe loss! These days, I love Richard Strauss (having done my own denazification on him), and Stravinsky is my favourite twentieth century composer along with Gershwin, Ravel and Bernstein*. The Seventh wasn't a bad performance, but the best of a good number of Sevenths I ever heard was conducted by Bernard Haitink with the LPO a few years later. But I did hear Haitink conduct a horribly anonymous Beethoven Four around the same time, a cautionary tale militating against hero worship!

*Jayz, I dunno, there's Vaughan Williams, Samuel Barber, Butterworth...

I love Carlos Kleiber's Seventh and that was my go-to for years. But the Mackerras one just about pips him. Try it!