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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 11

Tales from the Stave: Series 11: Episode 1: Mozart's Requiem

Episode 1

Episode 1: Mozart's Requiem

Series 11

Mozart's Requiem

BBC Radio 4 - Tales from the Stave, Series 11, Mozart's Requiem

Frances Fyfield reveals the stories behind one of the world's most valuable manuscripts.

Frances Fyfield and her guests explore the stories revealed in one of the world's most valuable music manuscripts, Mozart's Requiem Mass.

The manuscript of Mozart's Requiem Mass may have had a starring role in the film Amadeus but in this opening programme of a new series of Tales from the Stave, Frances Fyfield and her guests reveal the equally extraordinary true stories behind the composer's final, unfinished, composition.

The film played fast and loose with the role of Salieri in the decline and death of the composer. In fact his role is relatively minor. But the score - or rather the scores, for Mozart's wife Constanza over-saw work on two separate volumes - tells of contributions, additions, edits and completions by at least two composers and probably more. And yet through these layers of development, a masterpiece of dramatic composition still manages to emerge.

Frances is joined by the music scholar Nigel Simeone, the Viennese conductor Manfred Huss and Jette Engelke, a member of the Wiener Singakademie choir. They help to unpick what is and what isn't in Mozart's own hand and why they believe the completed work is so close to a structure conceived by the composer.

The team is indebted to the host at the Austrian National Library, Dr Thomas Leibnitz, who allows few to see this extraordinarily valuable manuscript. "It is" he points out laconically "quite simply the most valuable piece in our entire collection".

Producer: Tom Alban.

Tales from the Stave: Series 11

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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Episode 1: Mozart's Requiem

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