Symphony No. 1 (Dvořák)

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 3 (1865). Dvořák subtitled it The bells of Zlonice because it was in this bohemian city near Nelahozeves, his birthplace, where he acquired his first musical knowledge under the tutelage of the maestro by Antonin Liehmann. It consists of four movements:

• Allegro.
• Adagio di molto.
• Allegretto.
• Finale – Allegro animato.

Dvořák never valued his first symphonies, which he wanted to destroy, and even less this first one whose revision he never refused to carry out. Actually the score is preserved despite its author and is due to an initial loss of it. It was found around 1882 in a Leipzig bookstore to disappear again and be definitively lost. However, in 1924 it was found in the possession of Rudolf Dvořák, a collector with the same last name as the composer but not related to him. When Dvořák, at the end of his life, related his works, he numbered the symphonies from 1 to 8 without counting this first one. Its premiere took place in Brno in 1936.

This is a work of youth composed when he was only 24 years old, so it reveals a certain inexperience, but also a demonstration of great qualities to exploit in the future. It has some formal resemblances to Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Its instrumentation and harmonic arrangement are more typical of a romantic composer in the style of Franz Schubert.