String Quintet in G Major

For my money, Antonín Dvořák's 'String Quintet No. 2 in G major' (Op. 77) is among the best of his lesser-known works. It was composed in 1875, a few years before the 'Slavonic Dances' became his first major hit, launching him into the compositional big-time. It wasn't published until 1888, by which time his international reputation was well-established.

Unusually for a late-19th-century quintet, it's scored for two violins, viola, cello, and double bass. It's performed here by the Dvořák Quartet augmented by bassist František Pošta. I have it on a 1967 Supraphon LP: a re-issue of a recording first released five years earlier, so Discogs informs me. I think it may have been one of the several classical albums I've bought from the Oxfam shop in Thornbury.

Originally in five movements, it was published without a slow 'Intermezzo' that would have been its second. The current second movement ('Scherzo. Allegro vivace') is probably the most striking of the ones that made the cut, but the whole piece is richly melodic and enjoyable from beginning to end.

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