Drama/Documentary

The clue is in the title—”… and the candle went out!”—and this fourth and final episode of Requiem for Mozart, broadcast on 10 December 1991, is irrevocably drawn to Mozart’s impending end. It opens, however, in the spring of 1781, and an atmosphere of levity, the composer buoyed up on…

The third part of Requiem for Mozart, “I didn’t know I was a valet!”, was broadcast on 3 December 1991, just two days before the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death. The episode’s title speaks of the indignation Mozart felt upon his return to Vienna, where his employer Archbishop Colloredo treated…

Part 2 of Requiem for Mozart, “I will no longer be a fiddler!”, was broadcast on 26 November 1991. It picks up the story in 1777, with Mozart’s decision to relinquish his post in Salzburg, his eye set on securing a more notable position in Paris. Thus begins a fairly…

Anyone with an interest in Radio 3 can’t have failed to notice the BBC’s ongoing The Genius of Mozart season, devoting the first dozen days of 2011 to nothing but Mozart’s music, incorporating (they claim) “every note he wrote”. Not the most imaginative idea ever, but Mozart’s hardly a poor…

Quite a few years ago, in the early 1990s, the BBC broadcast what i can only assume was one of the last productions to have involved the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It was a one-off dramatisation of the book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, starring Derek Jacobi in…

Radio 3 now calls it simply “CD Review”, but a few years back it was known as “Interpretations on Record”. Each programme focuses on a particular composition, examining the available recordings with the intention of choosing one that is arguably better than the others. This is an edition of the…

Today’s episode of Great Lives, on BBC Radio 4, was devoted to Joy Division’s lead singer, the late and much-lamented Ian Curtis. Many, many words have been spoken and written about this man, but the programme doesn’t stoop to probing his tortured remains or erecting pedestals to his memory. Matthew…