Professor Cliff Eisen focuses on a model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Renaissance piece at the British Museum in London, which Nannerl Mozart mentions in her diary among the most remarkable things she saw during the Mozarts' stay in England.

Object 3: A model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Mozart’s world rediscovered in objects of his time. Professor Cliff Eisen looks at Mozart’s world through objects that were close to him. From BBC Radio 3.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Music

In this final episode Cliff Eisen focuses on medicine in the second half of the 18th century, and contemporary views on science and death. We explore today's object: a scarifier,used to bleed Mozart's mother before her death in Paris, and hear a moving account of Mozart's death in 1791 as recalled by his sister-in-law.

Objects 12: Blood letting device

Cliff Eisen talks about travel in the 18th Century, and discovers the books Leopold Mozart picked up in London as well as the tea chest that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart carried with him on his travels.

Object 10 & 11: Leopold's books and Mozart's tea chest

In this episode Cliff Eisen explores Mozart's Masonic links in Vienna, and the relationship between the Masons and Emperor Joseph II. The object, a Masonic Journal from the 1780s, gives clues about some of the pieces with Masonic symbols that Mozart wrote, like the Magic Flute, and works he composed for Masonic Lodges.

Object 9: A Masonic periodical published in Vienna in the 1780s

A window from Mozart's flat in Vienna inspires Cliff Eisen to visit the actual place – the Figarohaus, today a museum dedicated to the composer, who tried to earn his life as a free-lance musician in the Imperial Capital – but what challenges did he face?

Object 8: A window from Mozart’s flat in Vienna

Cliff Eisen starts with an executioner’s sword dating back from the days when Salzburg embraced capital punishment. This episode explores crime and punishment in Mozart’s time and how this was reflected in some of his operas from the 1780s.

Object 3: A model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Download our free app to listen on your phone