Dvorak received a commission for this work in 1877 for a benefit concert to raise funds for the construction of a new church in Prague. Composed between August 6 and 28 September, it was first performed on December 2 at the Provisional Threatre, with the orchestra conducted by Ludevit Prochazka as the composer's opus 40. It would be eleven years before the work was first published however, and Dvorak's publisher Simrock assigned the opus number of 78 to imply they were bringing out a new work. The work entered the symphonic repertoire gradually after its 1888 publication and remains extremely...