Tales from the Stave - Series 6 - Episode 1

When making plans to celebrate his fiftieth year as a conductor in 1938, the proms founder Sir Henry Wood called on the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams to compose a piece for a special anniversary concert. The resulting 'Serenade to Music' using sixteen of the finest British singers of the day took its place alongside pieces by Bax, Elgar, Wagner and a special guest appearance from the Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninov. A setting of lines from Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' it moved both the great Russian composer and the audience to such a degree that rather than being an occasional piece it worked its way into the concert repertoire. It's now one of the highlights of the Vaughan Williams canon and the autograph manuscript resides with Sir Henry Wood's other musical treasures in the library of the Royal Academy of Music. Frances Fyfield is joined at the RAM by the music writer and friend of Vaughan Williams, Michael Kennedy, the mezzo-Soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers who has twice been selected to record the piece over the last few years, and the Royal Academy's own Jeremy Summerly to examine the hand-written score, complete with the markings of Sir Henry Wood himself, who not only conducted the first performance but recorded it only a few days later at Abbey Road studios. Producer: Tom Alban.