Weighted with armour, tunics and boots, the actors strut around a gloomy castle, mustering peacockish assurance as easily as moping defeat. Commanded by Henry II to "seek penitent obscurity", this unrepentant quartet passes the time in boarding-school humour. Instead of fasting and prayer, there's a daily diet of moaning, bickering, smut, homosexual cravings, madness and lashings of 12th-century savagery. Life as a secondary-school teacher must have given Corcoran a wealth of material to draw on, but other influences are also apparent: Blackadder in particular, the Carry On films in general. You could also argue that it more often resembles a pilot sitcom than a play.

Let yourself be put off by it, though, and you'll miss out on a ribaldly anachronistic version of history that is no more subtle but far funnier. Reginald FitzUrse, William de Traci, Richard le Bret and Hugh de Morville are spied at four points during their year-long hideout in Knaresborough Castle, Yorkshire. Eugene Asti was their painstaking accompanist, whereas the Florestan's pianist Susan Tomes returned for the popular Second Piano Quintet. Tomes's finely shaded handling of the Scherzo's trio was a particular joy.That Dvorak was a master of melody and orchestral colour is widely acknowledged; but that he was a truly great composer is something that the next century is duty-bound to confirm.Rob Cowan. THE PUN-INTENDED title of Paul Corcoran's debut comedy about the four knights who assassinated Thomas a Becket in 1170 is as wince-making as a Sun headline. The F minor Trio should surely scotch such arguments for good, though the "American" style E flat String Quintet that followed the talk could as easily support them.As to the rest of the series, Moravian Duets and Gipsy Songs were shared between contralto Hilary Summers and soprano Helene Wold. Better still was Professor Jan Smaczny's thought-provoking talk about the "life and works", homing in on potential creative routes that, had they been followed, might have led to Czech variants on Debussy, Strauss or Schoenberg.

Perhaps the fact that Dvorak didn't follow them helps explain why he is still denigrated in some quarters as "lightweight". Earlier, violinist Anthony Marwood treated us to the winsome Four Romantic Pieces, but his playing in the Trio seemed more candidly responsive.The documentary centre-piece of the Rhapsody was an absorbing film by Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir entitled Dvorak in America, with vintage shots of Prague, New York and Chicago, spoken quotations from Dvorak's letters and sundry interviews. Richard Lester of the Florestan Trio had been scheduled to play cello both in the Sextet and in the Second Piano Quintet, but could not due to the birth of his son, Joel. Lester was back with the Florestan for a strongly stated account of Dvorak's greatest chamber work, his F minor Piano Trio. Their CD of the piece is very good, but this was better - more dashing, and more at one with the almost desperate arguments that dominate most of the first movement. It's tuneful, innovative, rhythmically alive, direct and appreciative of indigenous cultures - especially Afro and Native Americans. First to sound in this seven-hour "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the glorious but little-known String Sextet, a storehouse of interesting musical ideas. Stephanie Gonley played a sweet-toned first violin, warmly supported by violinist Harvey de Souza, violists Timothy Boulton and Louise Williams, and cellists Timothy Gill and Steven Doane.