Donald Macleod explores Antonin Dvorak's stratospheric rise to fame in the 1870s.

Long before the famous journey to the New World, the celebrated visits to this country, before even the great shaggy beard...there was once a young composer, obsessed with Wagner, scratching out a meagre living in obscurity in Prague - waiting patiently to snatch his moment as the most outstanding and distinctive musical voice his nation had ever heard. This week, Donald Macleod explores the critical period in the late 1870s when Antonin Dvorak first made his name, drawing musically from no fewer than four of Dvorak's early symphonies, his Piano and Violin Concertos, his much-loved Slavonic Dances, his String Quintet in G, and host of stage and chamber works.

We begin with a critical moment in Dvorak's early life: just as all seemed lost, and his early opera "King and Charcoal Burner" seemed set for the dustbin of history, the composer received a new state award for impoverished composers. It was to utterly transform his life.

A Garland (Songs from The Dvur Kralove Manuscript)
Bernarda Fink, soprano
Roger Vignoles, piano

The King and the Charcoal-Burner: Act III, Scene I
WDR Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Gerd Albrecht, conductor

Rosebud (Songs from The Dvur Kralove Manuscript)
Bernarda Fink, soprano
Roger Vignoles, piano

Symphony No 3 in E flat, Op 10
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Myung Whun-Chung, conductor

Symphony No 4 in D minor, Op 13 (3rd mvt)
London Symphony Orchestra
István Kertesz, conductor. Show less