Friendship with Brahms

Donald Macleod reveals how a fellow composer helped kick-start Dvořák’s career.

In an era overloaded with brooding and overwrought Romantic sensibilities, Antonín Dvořák’s music shone with grace, joy and humanity. Audiences were enchanted and adopted Dvořák as one of the 19th century’s most beloved composers. He was especially in demand in Britain and the USA, and enjoyed successful visits both countries. Dvořák was never happier, though, than at home in his native Bohemia, listening to the birds singing, feeding his pigeons, and indulging in a bit of train spotting, too.

From the mid 1870s, Antonín Dvořák developed a friendship with Johannes Brahms, who was already well established as a composer. From early on, both musicians hit it off and Brahms was soon disposed to help Dvořák in any way he could. Brahms encouraged his own publisher, Fritz Simrock, to take on his younger colleague. The subsequent release of Dvořák’s first set of Slavonic Dances made him a household name. Brahms also introduced Dvořák’s work to the conductor Hans Richter, and to violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim. Richter would go on to conduct Dvořák’s music in concerts around Europe, and Joachim was responsible for encouraging Dvořák to compose his famous Violin Concerto.

Cigánské melodie, Op 55 No 4 (Songs my mother taught me)
Renée Fleming, soprano
English Chamber Orchestra
Jeffrey Tate, conductor

Slavonic Dances Op 46 (excerpt)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Jiří Bĕlohlávek, conductor

Hussite Overture, Op 67
London Symphony Orchestra
Witold Rowicki, conductor

Violin Concerto in A minor, Op 53 (Finale)
James Ehnes, violin
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for BBC Wales