Antonín Dvořák’s epic seventh symphony is now available in a newly edited version – the first since the Gesamtausgabe publications of 1955 – which includes an extensive critical commentary and an appendix featuring the original London version of the second movement.Footnote ¹ This new Urtext edition, edited by Jonathan Del Mar, offers a critical reconsideration of one of the late nineteenth century’s most heroic symphonies. While acknowledging the previous editions, Del Mar does not rely upon them but instead returns to primary source material in order to construct the new full score. In 2004 Bärenreiter published the seventh symphony in the New Complete Edition of Dvořák, but chose to reprint the 1955 Gesamtausgabe edition. Del Mar’s edition is therefore all the more valuable.Footnote ² While it references the older Gesamtausgabe edition and acknowledges that most performers and scholars have accepted the Gesamtausgabe as an authoritative edition for decades, Del Mar’s Urtext returns to the primary sources – Dvořák’s autograph score (critical commentary source A) and the 1885 first edition of the full score (source E).

Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Society in 1884, the seventh was originally published in 1885 by Simrock. Brahms cultivated the relationship between Dvořák and Simrock, writing to the Bonn publisher on the Bohemian composer’s behalf. Connections with a German publisher thus elevated Dvořák’s fame from the local to the international scene, and proved an important step in his career. The cordial and mutually appreciative relationship with Brahms, which dates from 1877, was equally advantageous. Despite Dvořák’s admiration of Wagner and his own foray into works for the stage, the Bohemian composer is often characterized alongside Brahms as a stalwart against the New German movement. Likewise, Dvořák’s seventh is often compared to Brahms’s contemporaneous third and fourth symphonies (1883 and 1884–85, respectively). Despite some similarities, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 is treated most justly when considered on its own terms, rather than as a response to Brahms’s music.

Dvořák’s fame in England rose in 1879 when German-born conductor August Manns presented the newly orchestrated Slavonic Dances, which had been commissioned the year before by Simrock in the spirit of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances.Footnote ³ The Slavonic Dances were critically acclaimed, and performances of the Op. 48 string sextet, the Op. 51 string quartet (performed by the Joachim Quartet in 1880 and 1881, respectively), the Sixth Symphony (1882) and Stabat Mater (1883, Sir Joseph Barnby conducting) soon followed.Footnote ⁴ By the time Dvořák conducted the newly completed seventh symphony in London in 1885 he had visited the city three times, twice in 1884, when he conducted his own Stabat Mater. London audiences had given the Bohemian composer’s music a warm welcome for nearly six years, so the city seemed an ideal location for the premiere of a new symphony. After the premiere on 22 April 1885, London papers sang of Dvořák’s triumphant reception by audiences. An article in The Graphic on the following Saturday noted that, ‘the audience … seemed to be aware that they stood in the presence of a master-work’.Footnote ⁵ In Scotland it was reported as ‘by far the most important musical novelty of the week’ and a work of particularly Slavonic character.Footnote ⁶

At just over 35 minutes in length, the symphony is formally compact. Yet, the soaring lyrical themes do not suffer at all within the work’s dimensions. After editing the second movement in 1885, following the London premiere, Dvořák removed about seven pages before sending the work for publication, claiming that there was ‘not a superfluous note’ in his revisions.Footnote ⁷ In contrast to the first movement, which is clearly in sonata form, the F major adagio is formally ambiguous, though it falls most conveniently into a ternary shape, with the opening section containing three themes (bars 1–8; 18–25; 32–36). The B section (bars 40–71) introduces and develops an entirely new theme, announced in the clarinets at bar 44. Dvořák thus invokes the spirit of Beethoven’s Eroica, further solidifying his connection to the great symphonic tradition. When the opening material returns at bar 72, there are a number of alterations. The first theme begins a third higher and is now offered as a melodic variation, and, instead of the third theme, Dvořák ends the movement with the new material from the B section.

The third movement – a scherzo and trio – is the most militaristic in character, with strongly rhythmic themes. Dvořák uses the versatile meter of $$\raster="fx1"$$ , allowing the themes to move between triple and duple divisions with ease, at times mimicking a lilting Viennese waltz. Both A and B sections are forged out of one primary theme, with an additional counter theme playing an important but subsidiary role. In A the main theme begins right at bar 1, with the counter theme coming to the fore in the first variation (bar 18). B is structured similarly: the main theme begins at the first bar of the Trio (bar 92) and the subsidiary motive, derived as an alteration of a counter theme, enters clearly at bar 117 in the flute.

Also in sonata form, the finale showcases Dvořák’s diverse harmonic idiom. The movement’s opening theme is built upon an altered A major scale with a lowered second scale degree (B♭). The resulting augmented second between B♭ and C♯ not only lends an exotic quality to the theme, but also directs the listener towards a D centrality, manifested as D major in the coda. Three themes are presented in the exposition – the second in D minor (bar 66) and a final, lyrical theme in A major (bar 103). In this way, the tonal areas of the finale (D and A) round out the main tonalities of the symphony as a whole (D in movements one, three, and four, and F in the adagio).

Moments of harmonic ambiguity mirror the work’s blurred formal edges, lending just enough variation to entrance the educated and careful listener without straying from the dominant Austro-Germanic symphonic style of the late nineteenth-century. The final F major chord of the second movement, for example, echoes through the pick-up measure of the scherzo, which comprises only F and A. Not until the first down-beat of the third movement is D solidified as the tonic. Similarly, at the end of the finale, the last nine bars (molto maestoso) emphasize G minor alongside D major. Not only do bars 426–428 suggest vii°–V–I in G minor, but a plagal cadence (bars 428–429) and oscillation between second inversion G minor chord and the tonic D major further undermines a clean harmonic finish. These last moments of the seventh symphony do justice not only to the grandeur of the work, but also its bittersweet inevitability.

Del Mar’s Urtext edition is superior to previous versions of Dvořák’s seventh symphony in a number of significant ways. Throughout, this edition is characterized by a meticulous fidelity to Dvořák’s own markings. Scholars, in particular, will find this score extremely valuable, and it will also appeal to performers seeking a faithful interpretation that follows the composer’s own understanding of his work. The Urtext clarifies dynamic markings, making them more consistent between concurrent voices and throughout movements, and refines the articulation and phrasing in the same manner. The result is a clean and fastidious score that resolves or accounts for nearly all ambiguities of the text. Also, we should note that Del Mar corrects a number of errors perpetuated by the Gesamtausgabe and earlier editions, including pitch corrections in bar 44 (bassoon), bar 83 (strings and woodwinds) and bar 253 of the scherzo (double basses). The bassoons’ rhythm in the first movement (bars 163–164), which seems to have been an error on Dvořák’s part in all sources and which was carried through all publications, is now remedied as well. Additionally, the scherzo, which was incorrectly numbered in the Gesamtausgabe and following editions, now has the correct measure numbers that account for the incomplete bar that starts the movement.

Del Mar’s Urtext edition offers a valuable addition to the library of anyone seeking a precise and meticulously researched score of Dvořák’s Op. 70 seventh symphony. Scholars, performers and enthusiasts alike will surely appreciate the beauty and accuracy of this score.