AMADEUS

Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham recreates his most famous role - Salieri in the multi-Oscar-winning film Amadeus.

PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO A TECHNICAL PROBLEM, THE LAST 2 MINUTES OF EPISODE 4 BROADCAST ON FRIDAY 10th FEB ARE UNAVAILABLE.
 
Find out more about the Mozart Season on Radio 2

2006 marks the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, and BBC Radio 2 is celebrating with a series of programmes in honour of the great composer. Among these is a specially commissioned version of Sir Peter Schaffer's famous play, adapted by Neville Teller into an eight-part dramatic reading. Abraham will narrate the story which is told from the point of view of Mozart's deadliest rival, Court Composer Antonio Salieri.

In old age, Salieri recalls his successful career as Court Composer in Vienna, his hatred of Mozart, and how he conceived the brilliant young composer's demise. With an obnoxious personality totally incongruous with his musical genius, Mozart died neglected and impoverished, while the mediocre Salieri lived in a blaze of fame and wealth. Salieri's ironic fate was to be the only man at court to relaise that "from the ordinary he created legends - and from legends I created only the ordinary."

Now approaching his own death in 1823, Salieri looks back at the last decade of Mozart's life - the 1780s - and betrays a terrible intention to achieve a different kind of immortality.

Amadeus was recorded in New York, directed by Peter Leslie Wild, and will be woven together with extracts from some of Mozart's greatest orchestral and operatic music.

F Murray Abraham on the reading:

"Playing Salieri in the movie of Amadeus is of course one of the
highlights of my career, and it's very exciting to be re-visiting such
a great part. Sir Peter Schaffer's script is brilliant, and I'm
delighted to be doing it for the BBC this time." 
 
Episode one:
The composer Salieri lies on his deathbed and confesses his intense jealousy of the young upstart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.