Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70

Program notes

About the Work

In June 1884 the Philharmonic Society in London elected Dvořák an honorary member and asked him for a new symphony. He had just had a great success in England with his Stabat Mater, and he knew what the invitation meant: this was the society that had commissioned Beethoven’s Ninth. There was a second spur. He had recently heard the Third Symphony of his friend and supporter Johannes Brahms, and he was determined that his own next symphony should stand beside it. To a friend he wrote that the new work must be capable of stirring the world.

He worked on it through the winter and finished the score on 17 March 1885. Beneath the main theme of the first movement he noted that it had come to him at the station in Prague, on the arrival of a festive train from Pest carrying Hungarians and Czechs to a patriotic gathering at the National Theatre. Writers have drawn various conclusions from that note and from the troubles of these years in his life, but the symphony has no programme. What can be said is that it differs sharply from its neighbours. The Sixth and Eighth are sunny works, full of the dance rhythms of Bohemia. The Seventh is in D minor, tense and closely argued, with almost none of the folk colouring for which he was famous, and it is scored for a plain classical orchestra in which the brass are used sparingly.

Dvořák conducted the first performance himself at St James’s Hall in London on 22 April 1885. It was an immediate success. Publication was another matter. His Berlin publisher, Fritz Simrock, offered 3,000 marks, half what Dvořák thought fair, and suggested that he would do better to write more Slavonic Dances than symphonies. The composer held out for 6,000 and got it. He also objected to being printed as ‘Anton’, the German form of his name, on the title page. Many musicians have come to regard the Seventh as the finest of his nine symphonies.

What to Listen For

I. Allegro maestoso. The symphony begins in the dark. Over a low held note in the basses and horns, violas and cellos mutter the main theme, which circles within a narrow range before it suddenly flares up. A gentler second theme, given to flute and clarinet, brings some warmth, but the development is among the stormiest music Dvořák wrote. The ending is unexpected: after a fierce climax the movement dies away into the gloom from which it came, with nothing settled.

II. Poco adagio. A clarinet opens with a melody like a quiet hymn. The calm does not last, and the movement passes through several waves of strong feeling, with fine solos for the horn, before it finds its way back. After the premiere Dvořák cut some forty bars and told Simrock that there was now ‘not a single superfluous note’.

III. Scherzo: Vivace. The nearest the symphony comes to a Czech dance. Violins play a lilting tune while cellos and bassoon sing a different one against it, and the rhythm keeps shifting between two beats and three. The minor key holds the gaiety in check, and the gentle middle section brings only passing relief.

IV. Finale: Allegro. The main theme opens with a leap of an octave, strained and defiant. A broad, singing tune for the cellos offers contrast, and the two ideas are fought out at length. Only in the final bars does the music turn from D minor to a hard-won D major.