Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe, like Shakespeare and Dante, is among the few writers who define the Western tradition. Known to most reader as a peerless lyric poet and the author of such masterpieces as Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe, a true universal genius, excelled as a philosopher, scientist, and critic.
An older contemporary of Mozart, Goethe was born in Frankfurt, in 1749. Moving to Leipzig, in 1765, to study law, Goethe immersed himself in art, poetry, music, history, and German folk tradition.
His immense poetic talent and intellectual brilliance manifesting themselves in his youth, Goethe wrote poetry and embarked on his lifelong project of investigating plant physiology. With the publication of his Werther (1774), an extraordinary account of tragic love, Goethe became a European sensation, as the novel literally captivated readers throughout Europe, even prompting some to emulate the unfortunate protagonist by committing suicide. In 1775, Goethe joined the court of Saxe-Weimar, settling there for good, and accepting several positions and honors in the small German state, including the post of prime minister. An Italian sojourn, from 1786 to 1788, was a life-altering experience, as the poet passionately embraced Italian culture and its classical sources. Works from this period include his Roman Elegies,
Egmont, and Iphigenie auf Tauris. Goethe was initially entranced by the French Revolution; however, limiting his enthusiasm to the professed humanism of some of revolutionary ideals, he condemned the revolution's violence; furthermore, adhering to his ideal of humanism, Goethe distanced himself from the Romantic glorification of nationhood. What makes Goethe a truly timeless and universal artist is his desire to understand the human individual as such, and not as a entity defined by any social group.This desire inspired his bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister, the first volume of which appeared in 1796. Another work reflecting Goethe's struggle to comprehend the unique human mystery is his monumental drama Faust, based on the medieval legend of a scholar he sells his soul to the devil in exchange for absolute knowledge, in which Goethe presented, in poetic form, his conception of human destiny as a tragic quest for absolute knowledge and ultimate salvation. Published in its entirety after the poet's death (Part I appeared in 1808), Faust, to which Goethe devoted his entire life as a writer, is a story, enriched by the poet's tremendous erudition, of humankind's relentless search for spiritual meaning.
A keen student of physics, whose research included color theory and acoustics, Goethe had a lifelong interest in music. Although he sometimes failed to appreciate the greatest music of his time, preferring Zelter to Beethoven and Schubert, Goethe exerted a profound influence on the German lied, as he clearly understood the deeply intimate connection between lyric poetry and music. Realizing the extraordinary richness and musicality of Goethe's poetry, great composers, including Schubert and Brahms, found true inspiration in his poems. For example, in his ballad Der Erlkönig (The Erlking), inspired by Goethe's haunting poem, Schubert masterfully reinforces, with frantic triplets in the piano accompaniment, the poetic description of the heartless demonic force in relentless pursuit of a father and his child in the dead of the night. Goethe's Faust, which also explores the power of demonic forces, found its musical incarnation, after the poet's death, in such works as Liszt's Faust Symphony and Berlioz' La damnation de Faust. According to Goethe, however, the ideal Faust composer would have been Mozart. Goethe, who died in 1832, may have misunderstood his younger contemporaries Beethoven and Schubert, but his assessment of Mozart's genius was profound and prophetic, for he discerned the demonic quality in Mozart's music that only future commentators would understand.
© TiVo
-
Sturm und Drang
Chamber Music - Released by TACET Musikproduktion on 1 Jan 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Goethe: Faust 2 (Die Gründgens-Inszenierung 1959)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustaf Gründgens
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Deutsche Grammophon Literatur on 1 Jan 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Iphigenie auf Tauris
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Deutsche Grammophon Literatur on 1 Jan 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Goethe: Der Mann von fünfzig Jahren (Reclam Hörbuch)
Reclam Hörbücher, Hans-Jürgen Schatz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Sony Music Catalog on 1 Jan 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mignon-Vertonungen
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ulrike Sonntag, Gisela Andreas
Classical - Released by TACET Musikproduktion on 1 Jan 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sehnsucht nach Italien
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Charles Gounod, Silke Evers, Wiebke tom Dieck
Classical - Released by Musicaphon on 5 Jun 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Die größte Hörbuch Box (Werther, Faust, Novelle, Reineke Fuchs, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Märchen, Gedichte)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sven Görtz, Jürgen Fritsche
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by BÄNG Management & Verlag on 26 Jun 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Italienische Reise ( Italienische Reise)
Classical - Released by Audio Media Digital on 1 Sep 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Die Roman-Hörbuch-Box, Vol. 2: Von Blumen, Gärten und wild bewegten Herzen (Die Kameliendame, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Eine blassblaue Frauenschrift)
Franz Werfel, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexandre Dumas, Sven Görtz
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by BÄNG Management & Verlag on 6 Sep 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Celebrate Beethoven: Music from His Late Compositional Period
Classical - Released by Naxos on 3 Apr 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Das alte Weimar
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Karl Friedrich Zelter, Johann Gottfried Herder, Christoph Martin Wieland, Frank Fröhlich
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by GOLDMUND-Hörbücher on 22 Oct 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Auf dem Weg zum Glück: Die große Hörbuch Box der philosophischen Anregungen - Teil 1 (Seneca, Nietzsche, Lichtenberg und Goethe)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by BÄNG Management & Verlag on 12 Feb 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Der Prokurator (Eine Novelle. Ungekürzt gelesen)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jürgen Fritsche
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by BÄNG Management & Verlag on 3 Jan 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Karlsbad bis auf den Brenner (Italienische Reise, Teil 1)
Classical - Released by Audio Media Digital on 11 Sep 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Klassische Balladen (Ungekürzt)
Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Steinbach Sprechende Bücher on 10 Jan 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Literatur der Klassik
Friedrich Hölderlin, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by SAGA Egmont on 9 Feb 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Es schlug mein Herz. Geschwind, zu Pferde!
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Goyalit on 19 Jul 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Deutsche Novellen - Ausgewählte Novellen und Balladen (Ungekürzt)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Raabe, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Steinbach Sprechende Bücher on 22 Jan 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Faust I (Ungekürzt)
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Amor Verlag GmbH on 22 Feb 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Goethe: Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, III. Teil (Reclam Hörbuch)
Reclam Hörbücher, Heiko Ruprecht, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Sony Music Catalog on 21 Sep 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werther
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hans Kremer
Humour/Spoken Word - Released by Deutsche Grammophon Literatur on 30 Apr 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo