Donald Macleod explores Dvorak's life-changing relationship with Johannes Brahms, with a complete performance of the String Quintet in G.

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.

Though his recent award for "impoverished artists" had bolstered him financially, Dvorak's name was still little known in the mid-1870s. That is, until he came into contact with one of the most powerful and respected figures in European music: Johannes Brahms. Donald Macleod explores their relationship.

Piano Trio No.1 in B flat major, Op 21 (3rd mvt)
Smetana Trio

Symphony No 5 in F major, Op 76 (2nd mvt)
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Mariss Jansons, conductor

Vanda (Act 3 excerpt)
Prague Radio Chorus and Orchestra
František Dyk, conductor

String Quintet No 2 in G major, Op 77
Škampa Quartet
Laurène Durantel, double bass. Show less