There’s a lot of ugly in the world. Here’s some beauty. It’s the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the baton of Maestro Peter Oundjian performing the Seventh Symphony of the Czech Catholic composer, Antonín Leopold Dvořák.
When I was a teenager, I came to love two of Dvořák’s symphonies as among my favorite pieces of music, the eighth and the ninth. The ninth is the most popular (“From the New World”), but I always liked the eighth better, largely owing to the exhilarating horn part in the fourth movement. I’ve only very recently come to appreciate the seventh. Some musicologists consider it his greatest symphony. I’m undecided on that just yet, but I cannot blame them for thinking so. I’ve heard several performances of this, but this rendition is (so far) my favorite. It’s dark, brooding, moody, captivating, and triumphalist all at once.
Supposedly, Dvořák said of this work, “God grant that this Czech music will move the world!” As one YouTube commenter said, “It did, and still does.” Prayer answered. Bravo.
