With a performance time of approximately 40 minutes, the four-movement piece was one of the first of Dvořák’s large symphonic works to draw international attention.

In order to understand the context in which he composed this symphony, the climate and reception of Dvořák’s earlier works in Vienna should be taken into consideration.

Richter kissed me on the spot and told me he was very glad to know me.…[1] Music historians have made various conclusions regarding what this letter implies about Dvořák’s reception in Vienna.

Dvořák scholar John Clapham interprets this letter to say that the audience at the concert responded with a warm ovation, and that Richter was pleased with the work.

I had expected it to make a livelier effect after the impression of the dress rehearsal.”[4] Even though audience reception at the actual concert may have been less than enthusiastic, Richter saw promise in Dvořák’s work and asked him to write a symphony for the orchestra.

He finished the symphony the following year, in October 1880, and traveled to Vienna to play the composition on the piano for Richter, who was very excited about the work.

Gerald Abraham writes, "...he had recognizable affinities with all three of the principal musical tendencies of the period, with the conservatism of Brahms and his followers, with the modernism of the Liszt-Wagner school, and with the nationalism that was in almost every country... in Europe.

[13] Dvořák then applied for a stipend from Svatobor, a Prague association for the support of artists, to finance a period of study with Liszt in Weimar.

[14] This turn of events probably greatly affected Dvořák's eventual shift to a personal integrative style of composition, as opposed to a complete devotion to the Wagner school.

In 1874, Dvořák submitted numerous works to apply for the Austrian State Stipendium, money offered to young poor artists by the Ministry of Education.

[14] And in Prague itself was the older and more revered Czech nationalistic composer Bedřich Smetana who eventually supported Dvořák by being among the first to program and conduct concerts that included his compositions.

David Beveridge states, "In 1880, with the composition of his Sixth Symphony, Dvořák had at last achieved an optimum balance between his nationalistic-romantic proclivities and the demands of classical form.

According to David Brodbeck, Dvořák purposely utilized sources from the German tradition in order to cater to a Viennese audience and their cultural values.

The symphony is written in four movements: The score calls for two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, strings.

[22] The movement ends with a D major coda (measure 480) that reviews the previous themes over pedals emphasizing the dominant and tonic pitches.

The excitement decays to pianissimo for what appears to be a peaceful conclusion, until a unison fortissimo statement of the second secondary theme closes the movement.

Otakar Šourek, an early 20th-century Dvořák scholar, wrote, "the second movement has the quality of a softly yearning nocturne and of an ardently passionate intermezzo.

Dvořák takes an odd bit of sound, a mere dominant-tonic progression ... and then, to our great delight fashions it into a movement, structurally classical, yet thematically having the nature of lovely improvisation.

[35] Robert Layton argues that Dvořák's early sketches for the first movement were in D minor and 24 meter, differing from Brahms' Symphony No.

He cites a Czech folk song, Já mám koně, as the inspiration for the primary theme of the first movement, with Dvořák later altering the mode and time signature.

David Brodbeck writes, "Dvořák's main theme alludes directly to the so-called Großvater-Tanz, which traditionally served as the closing dance at Viennese balls.

"Aside from the Czech folk-song, Já mám koně, nearly all the principal motifs of Dvořák's sixth Symphony can be traced back to ... compositions by Beethoven and Brahms.

"[39] Many of Josephson's comparisons involve transitional material, modulatory processes, and orchestration, emphasizing that Dvořák was influenced by Beethoven's procedures, not just his melodies.

"[41] Dvořák's theme is not a literal translation of the folk song, but it does have similarities, including hemiola in the first half of the phrase and neighbor tone relationships.

The myriad of possible references and models by Brahms, Beethoven, and Czech folksongs demonstrate Dvořák's synthesis of his nationalistic style with the Viennese symphonic tradition.

But the climate in Vienna was becoming quite unwelcoming of any compositions that issued from non-Germanic roots, especially those works with obvious references to other nationalities (such as the Furiant in Symphony no.

"...in Vienna the musical exoticism that had played so well elsewhere ran head-on into the political crisis engendered by the Liberals' recent loss of power.

“Not long after Simrock published the D major Symphony, performances were taking place in half a dozen different countries, and generally the new work was so well received as to contribute greatly towards establishing Dvořák as one of the foremost composers of his generation.”[44] English music critic Ebenezer Prout described the symphony in his 1882 review as “(a) work that, notwithstanding some imperfections, must be considered one of the most important of its kind produced for some time.

[46] His trip was a success and the Royal Philharmonic Society made Dvořák an honorary member a few months later, also commissioning another symphony from him.

6) has an imminently Czech nature, just as Dvořák continues along the basis of his great and fluent power, the tree of which is decorated by the ever more beautiful fruits of his creation.”[50] On the Saturday 21 December 2013 broadcast of BBC Radio 3's CD review Building a Library, music critic Jan Smaczny surveyed recordings of Dvořák's Symphony No.