Tales From The Stave
First broadcast from 20040504 to 20091222.
Frances Fyfield, best-selling writer and radio sleuth tracks down the hidden stories of musical creativity locked within the hieroglyphics, scribbles and emendations in manuscripts of three great works of classical music.
18 episodes
| Series | Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 01 | Elgar's Violin Concerto | 20040504 | 20040628 | |
| 01 | 02 | Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony | 20040511 | 20040705 | Today it's the turn of the Beethoven sketch book that became the Pastoral Symphony. |
| 01 | 03 LAST | Handel's Jephtha | 20040518 | 20040712 | Frances Fyfield turns the autographed pages of Handel's last major choral work, Jephtha, and discovers a composer tormented by failing sight. |
| 02 | 01 | Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture | 20051213 | 20051217 | Frances Fyfield goes to the Bodleian Library in Oxford to examine the manuscript of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture for clues of how the 20-year old composer came to dream it up on a boat to the isle of Mull. With conductor Mark Elder |
| 02 | 02 | My Ladye Neville's Book | 20051220 | 20051224 | Frances Fyfield returns to the British Library's music archive. In the company of harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock, she delves into the beautifully ornate 16th-century calligraphy and astonishing invention of William Byrd's keyboard collection My Ladye Neville's book. |
| 02 | 03 LAST | 20051227 | She is joined by pianist Mitsoku Uchida to examine a remarkable manuscript by Mozart. | ||
| 03 | 01 | 20070320 | 20070324 | A 20th-century Russian classic was thought to have been lost, until very recently. On the day it officially goes on loan to the British Library, conductor Marin Alsop and critic Geoffrey Norris tell its astonishing story, which includes being stored briefly in a carrier bag. | |
| 03 | 02 | 20070327 | 20070331 | Benjamin Britten's working score for his opera Peter Grimes is in the Britten-Pears library at Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Contributors include tenor Philip Langridge, Britten expert Dr John Evans and Dr Paul Banks of the Royal College of Music. | |
| 03 | 03 | 20070403 | Henry Purcell was one of Britain's most prolific great composers. Professor Sir Curtis Price and Dr Edward Higginbottom examine his Anthems and Odes to uncover the secrets of his art. | ||
| 03 | 04 LAST | Beethoven's Symphony No 9 (choral) | 20070410 | The composer produced two manuscript copies of his last symphony. One of them, prepared for the then newly-launched Royal Philharmonic Society, is in the British Library. In addition to Beethoven's notes and revisions, the score reveals the curious story of one of the most famous double bass players of all time. Bassist Rodney Slatford and conductor and editor Jonathan Del Mar examine this cornerstone of the western classical repertoire. | |
| 04 | 01 | Iolanthe | 20080415 | 20080419, RptofTue1.30pm, RptdSat3.30pm | Frances is joined by Kit Hesketh-Harvey, opera singer Richard Suart and Gilbert and Sullivan biographer Michael Ainger to look at the manuscript of the celebrated operetta. The score and prompt book offer a vivid insight into a composer at the height of his theatrical powers and a satirist with a clear vision of the way the work should be delivered. |
| 04 | 02 | Pulcinella | 20080422 | 20080426 | Stravinsky's sketchbook for his ballet score can be found in the British Library. Written shortly after the First World War while he was living in Switzerland, the work marked a dramatic change from the power and rhythm of The Rite of Spring. The booklet shows the composer arranging and modernising a series of themes and arias originally thought to have been written by Pergolesi. Contributors include conductor Barry Wordsworth, handwriting expert Ruth Rostron and Maureen Carr from the University of Wisonsin. |
| 04 | 03 | Finzi's Clarinet Concerto | 20080429 | Frances is joined by internationally acclaimed clarinettist Emma Johnson as they recall the creation of one of Finzi's most popular and enduring works. | |
| 04 | 04 LAST | The Marriage Of Figaro | 20080506 | Frances visits Berlin with conductor Jane Glover and Welsh soprano Rebecca Evans for a rare look at Mozart's autograph score of his magnificent comic opera at the Staatsbibliothek. They have a unique opportunity to explore most of it, but curiously not all, at first hand. | |
| 05 | 01 | Bach's B-minor Mass | 20091201 | 20091205 | There are very few scores anywhere in the world of more value than Bach's famous Mass. So fragile is it that the Berlin library where it's kept (the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) allows only a very few people ever to see it, let alone touch it. Choral conductor Simon Halsey and the Bach soprano Deborah York join Frances at the Library to get closer to the great German composer's extraordinary industry and to catch a glimpse of his humanity. It is often half-jokingly said that, to his fans, Bach is not so much a composer as a religion; but here, in his neat hand, are the crossings out and re-workings of a man still seeking to perfect music, much of which was written earlier in his life. Simon Halsey has described the B-Minor Mass as 'Bach's greatest hits', since in many ways it is a compilation of pieces he had composed over a number of years. The Berlin score isn't simply a fair copy of this assembly, but shows Bach still hard at work, changing his mind, rewriting - a phrase shifted here, a key modulated there - introducing new instrumentation and striving for something better. There is also an incredible technological story to tell. Bach's pages are literally thick with music - so thick that in many places the ink has actually burned through the paper, leaving it almost impossible to read. So the Library has had to split the single pages open and insert a protective sheet to stabilise the ink-burn. Frances Fyfield and guests get closer to Bach's industry and see a glimpse of his humanity |
| 05 | 02 | Tippett: A Child Of Our Time | 20091208 | 20091212 |  Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music.Using the pencil-written score and private notebooks and letters, Frances unpacks the creative story behind Sir Michael Tippett's oratorio, A Child of Our Time. With its Spiritual Choruses mixed with the stark modernity of its forbidding message, it stands now as one of the most powerful statements about man's potential for inhumanity to man. As the letters and notes reveal, the inspiration for the peace was the shooting in 1938 of a German diplomat in Paris by an enraged 17-year-old Jewish boy, powerless to stop the Nazi attrocities against his family in Germany. His actions, twisted by Nazi propoganda, provoked Kristalnacht: a rising against Jewish people and property which resulted in the burning of synagogues and Jewish shops and houses. Already a passionate political thinker, Tippett tried to express his feelings through a three-part oratorio that described the way a man, the child of the title, can be coralled into an act of self-destruction. And set against this dark journey are the spirituals, one of which - 'Steal away to Jesue' - he had heard and been inspired by on a radio broadcast. Like Bach's chorales, they remain a way into the piece for many listeners, commenting on the moods and reflecting on the anger, despair and resignation of the child's journey. As well as revealing Tippett's workings and worryings over the music, the British Library's archive also throws light on the way the libretto developed, being sent for improvement to the poet Ts Eliot, who promptly sent it back advising the composer that he was managing quite well on his own. Joing Frances are the singer Sarah Walker, who sang the vital mezzo soprano role in a recording made in 1991 with the composer himself conducting, the music scholar and writer Paul Banks and the graphologist Ruth Rostron. Frances Fyfield and her team explore Tippett's pre-war masterpiece, A Child Of Our Time. |
| 05 | 03 | Holst: The Planets | 20091215 | 20091219 | Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music. Holst apparently hated the popularity of The Planets. He sat down to compose it in 1914 and it had its first performance in 1918. Given that English audiences were used to Elgar, this massive 'modern' orchestral work came as a huge surprise to concert goers, and they loved it. From the opening 5/4 tempo of the first movement of Mars, this could be considered one of the first great pieces of 20th-century English music. Holst had recently heard the revolutionary compositions of Schoenberg and Stravinsky and in The Planets, he mixes harmonies and rhythms in the most dramatic way. Not all of the score is in his own hand, as he suffered from neuritis, so he sometimes used copyists to help with his composition. Frances' guests select their favourite movements from the score, which is held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and they are joined by the curator Martin Holmes, who looks after the precious manuscripts there. The seven movements don't include Pluto; that was only discovered in 1930, four years before his death. The success of The Planets overshadowed Holst's other compositions, which are quite different in style from his astrological depictions. While the piece is still popular in concert halls around the UK, its also familiar to film fans as it is frequently used in movies. What would Holst have made of its enduring popularity, 75 years after his death, and what would he have made of its use in computer games? Frances Fyfield and guests pore over the pages of the manuscript of Holst's The Planets. |
| 05 | 04 | Chopin: Barcarolle | 20091222 | 20091226 | Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores of well-known pieces of music. Frances is joined by Chopin expert Adam Zamoyski and pianist Stephen Hough at the British Library to look at the autographed score of Chopin's Barcarolle. The library is holding a major exhibition in 2010 to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth. The greater part of Chopin's professional career was spent outside his native Poland - most of it in Paris, where he established himself as a fashionable teacher and performer in the houses of the wealthy. With a background of Venetian gondoliers' songs combined with Polish references, the Barcacolle for solo piano was completed in 1846 and meant so much to Chopin that he included it in the programme of a concert he gave in Paris in February 1848. It was to be his last public appearance in his beloved adopted city. His body succumbed to lifelong ill health a year later at the age of 39. Frances Fyfield visits the British Library to look at the Chopin's piano score, Barcarolle |