It is highly regarded by critics and musicologists; Donald Tovey stated that "along with the four Brahms symphonies and Schubert's Ninth, it is among the greatest and purest examples in this art-form since Beethoven".

[1] The work, approximately 40 minutes in length, is scored for an orchestra of two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo in the 3rd movement), two oboes, two clarinets (in A and B♭), two bassoons, four horns (in D and F), two trumpets (in C, D, and F), three trombones, timpani and strings.

So it was fortuitous that in that same year the Royal Philharmonic Society invited him to write a new symphony and elected him as an honorary member.

A month later, after his daily walk to Prague railway station, he said "the first subject of my new symphony flashed in to my mind on the arrival of the festive train bringing our countrymen from Pest".

In doing so the symphony would also reveal something of his personal struggle in reconciling his simple and peaceful countryman's feelings with his intense patriotism and his wish to see the Czech nation flourish.

6, showed the influence of Czech sources, although Leon Botstein suggested that the relationship "seems overpowered by the formal mastery of Dvořák's development of the ideas.

Simrock then flatly refused to print his Czech name, Antonín, on the cover—the publisher insisted that it be Anton, and that the title page be in German only.

During all of these prolonged arguments, Dvořák asked Simrock for an advance: "I have a lot of expense with my garden, and my potato crop isn't very good".

Bernard Shore stated "There is no doubt that the seventh in D minor is the finest of the series [of Dvořák symphonies]"[6] and Tovey implicitly agrees.