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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Tales from the Stave

Documentaries

Music: Classical

Series that tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music

Tales from the Stave: Series 7

Tales from the Stave: Series 7: Episode 1

Music

Episode 1

Series 7

BBC Radio 4 - Tales from the Stave, Series 7, Episode 1

Frances Fyfield's series of forensic musical discovery returns with Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Stories of graft and genius are revealed in handwritten music manuscripts as singer Simon Keenlyside and conductor Jane Glover join Frances Fyfield to explore Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Returning for a seventh season, crime writer Frances Fyfield once again leads off her series exploring the tales and tribulations revealed in the hand-written music manuscripts of some of the greatest works of classical music.

The opening programme of the series takes us to Paris where a beautifully crafted wooden box made in London in the mid 19th century houses Mozart's handwritten score of 'Don Giovanni'.

The Mozart expert and renowned conductor Jane Glover and arguably the world's finest living singer of the title role, Simon Keenlyside join Frances at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France as guests of their head of music manuscripts Elisabeth Giuliani.

How the score came to be in Paris after a spell in London, what secrets it reveals of Mozart's rush to complete it for a premiere in Prague and why one of the boldest lines in his entire operatic output should have been crossed out with a clear intent for it to be put back as soon as the censor's back was turned, will be revealed. 

It's also a chance to be astonished by the sheer detail of Mozart's musical invention, his professionalism as he adapts the odd line or the shaping of a phrase to fit the singers he was writing for, and blotches and coffee stains which give a vivid sense of the speed at which he was working.

All that plus the story of Giovanni's ruthless seductions, hell-raising lifestyle and some of the most celebrated music ever composed for the operatic stage - in Tales from the Stave.

Producer: Tom Alban

Also featured in the series: Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music

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