Symphony no. 7 in D minor, op. 70, B. 141

Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony in D minor was commissioned by the London Philharmonic Society. He completed the score in only three months, on 17 March 1885. In a letter to a friend, the composer expressed the hope that the work might travel throughout the world — a wish that reveals both his confidence in the symphony and the breadth of his ambition for it. He composed with Brahms’s Third Symphony, which he had recently heard, in mind, and said that the theme of the first movement came to him at the railway station in Prague while he waited for a train bringing supporters of Czech independence. The premiere was given at St James’s Hall in London on 22 April 1885, with the composer conducting. Simrock then offered three thousand marks for the publication and asked that the name appear as the German Anton; Dvořák took both as an affront, and the two settled on the abbreviated ‘Ant.’