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Twenty Minutes

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Eclectic arts magazine programme, exploring a range of fascinating subjects

Eclectic arts magazine programme, exploring a range of fascinating people, places and events

Twenty Minutes: Goethe and the West-Eastern Divan

Twenty Minutes: Goethe and the West-Eastern Divan: Episode 2

Goethe and the West-Eastern Divan

Episode 2

BBC Radio 3 - Twenty Minutes, Goethe and the West-Eastern Divan, Episode 2

Paul Farley on how Goethe's West-Eastern Divan poems were fuelled by a love affair.

Paul Farley learns how Goethe's original 'West-Eastern Divan' poems were fuelled by a passionate love affair.

To complement the series of Beethoven concerts by the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, Paul Farley explores Goethe's poetic sequence, 'The West-Eastern Divan', from which Daniel Barenboim's orchestra takes its name. 

From his youth, the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was fascinated by the ideas and culture of Islam and the Arabic-speaking world. His encounter in later life with the poems of medieval Persian poet Hafiz inspired his own tribute to eastern poetry: 'The West-Eastern Divan'. 

In tonight's programme, Paul learns how Goethe's original 'West-Eastern Divan' poems were fuelled by a passionate love affair with a young married woman, Marianne von Willemer. 

Paul examines Goethe's engagement with the ideas and imagery of Persian literature, and talks to contemporary German poets and writers about the continuing legacy of his 'West-Eastern Divan' poetry cycle. 
Produced by Emma Harding


Readings by Robert Blythe and Susie Riddell


Translations by Martin Bidney and David Luke


Notes on contributors:


Annette Seeman is a Weimar-based writer and President of the Friends of the Anna Amalia Library. Her books include "Weimar: A cultural history" and "Anna Amalia, Duchess of Weimar".


Marina Warner is a novelist, critic and author of "Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights" (2011). 


Silke Scheuermann was born in Karlsruhe in 1973 and now lives in Frankfurt am Main. She published her first volume of poetry, "Der Tag an dem die Möwen zweistimmig sangen" (The Day When the Seabirds Sang in Two Voices) in 2001. Her most recent works include the poetry collection "Über Nacht ist es Winter" (Winter Has Come Overnight) and a novel "Shanghai Performance". 


Matthias Göritz was born in Hamburg in 1969 and he lives in Frankfurt am Main. He was awarded the Hamburg Literature Prize and the Mara Cassens Prize for his first novel “The short Dream of Jakob Voss” (2005). His poetry collections include “Loops” (2001), “Pools” (2006) and “Tools” (2012).


Rita Seifert is a Weimar-born writer. Her books include "Goethe and Napoleon" (2007) and "Maria Pavlovna, patron of the arts" (2011).

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Features complementing a series of concerts by the West-Eastern Divan orchestra

Paul Farley presents two features complementing a series of concerts by the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, exploring Goethe's The West-Eastern Divan, from which Barenboim's orchestra takes its name.

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