Sunday Feature: Heinrich Heine: The First Modern European

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Heinrich Heine: The First Modern European

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Heinrich Heine: The First Modern European

Michael Goldfarb tells the story of playwright, poet and essayist Heinrich Heine.

Michael Goldfarb tells the story of German playwright, poet and essayist Heinrich Heine and argues that his writings, principles and vision guided the way for a modern Europe.

One day, three decades after the event, the German poet and man of letters Heinrich Heine, stood on the site of the battle of Marengo, one of Napoleon's earliest and most important victories and had an epiphany - or he invented one for his readers: "Gradually, day by day, foolish national prejudices are disappearing; all harsh differentiations are lost in the generality of European civilization. There are no more nations in Europe, only parties; and it is marvellous to see how these parties, for all their varying colouration, recognise one another and how they understand one another, despite many differences in language."

This move past national differences would be a force for unalloyed good because, if Europeans could see themselves as a unified "civilisation" then their example would be a force that "could" lead to the liberation of the world from prejudice.

Well, he was a child of the romantic age, you can forgive his enthusiastic language but his vision anticipates the principles that created and still guide the EU.

The writer produced astounding amounts of work: poetry, verse dramas, and essays and letters while conducting love affairs and just generally being in the public eye.

His poetry became the lyrical basis for lieder by Schubert, Schumann and many others. He had huge appeal in the middle of the 19th century. George Eliot wrote four monographs about him including one on his wit - bitterly ironic, very Jewish.

Today he is remembered in the English-speaking world for this quote, "Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too." When the Nazis held their book burnings outside the Berlin Opera House, Heine's were among those immolated. And when the Nazis initiated the war that would burn down a significant portion of the Europe Heine dreamed of, the connection to much of 19th-century German culture was cut including the life and work of Heinrich Heine.

Michael Goldfarb tells the story of Heine's life and the Europe in which he lived through interviews and using the musical settings of his poetry in lieder, readings from his poetry and plays, and George Eliot's perceptive comments.

Heine's was a tremendous life - he endured censorship and was harassed by the police spies of the Federated German-speaking nations. He lived as a celebrity - albeit an impecunious one - despite the fact his uncle was one of the German-speaking world's richest men. All the drama created a truly contemporary, 21st century sensibility

Producer: Julia Hayball
Readers: Jonathan Keeble, Robbie Stevens, Clare Corbett and Pavel Douglas
Sound design: Chris Maclean

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