Dvorakmania

Donald Macleod explores how the composer's new Slavonic Dances set off "Dvorakmania" in Germany. Plus: a complete performance of his radiant Wind Serenade.

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.

On the 15th November 1878, Dvorak's life changed for ever, as a review by the critic Louis Ehlert appeared in Berlin praising the composer as one of the most brilliantly gifted talents in contemporary music. As music lovers scrambled to buy Dvorak's new Slavonic Dances - the big hit of that winter - the Dvorak family were thrilled to be nursing a new baby, their beloved daughter Otilie. Donald Macleod presents complete performances of Dvorak's much-loved Wind Serenade, inspired by Mozart, and his charming Bagatelles for strings and harmonium.

Furiant in C major (Slavonic Dances, Op 46 No 1)
Peter Noke and Helen Krizos, piano duet

Skocna in A major (Slavonic Dances, Op 46 No 5)
Peter Noke and Helen Krizos, piano duet

Serenade in D minor, Op 44
Oslo Philharmonic Wind Ensemble

Bagatelles, Op 47
Vogler Quartet
Oliver Triendl, harmonium.