Goethe: A BBC Radio Drama Collection: Six Full-Cast Dramatisations Including Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther and More

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A collection of seminal dramatised pieces by the great German polymath

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a colossus of German literature and a true Renaissance man. A novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist and philosopher, he wrote the first international bestseller, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and his epic masterpiece Faust is one of the most famous and celebrated dramas of all time.

We open this anthology with a dramatisation of Faust , which tells of a magus with an insatiable thirst for knowledge who makes a pact with the Devil. Featuring atmospheric music performed by the King's College Choir and the BBC Singers, it stars Simon Callow as Faust, with Ronald Pickup as Mephistopheles.

It is followed by The Sorrows of Young Werther , Goethe's tale of a passionate young artist at odds with society, who falls hopelessly in love with his friend's fiancée. Dramatised by award-winning playwright Hattie Naylor and introduced by Cambridge University lecturer Dr Charlotte Lee, it stars Joel MacCormack, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jack Farthing.

Originally published in 1795 under the title 'The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily', A Fairy Tale is a magical, mysterious and strikingly modern story whose images foreshadow the poetry of surrealism. David Davis is the Teller of the Tale, with Rosalind Shanks as The Beautiful Lily and Mary Morris as The Serpent.

Next up are a trio of historical Egmont, set in 16th century Brussels and with a score specially composed by Ludwig van Beethoven; Iphigenia in Tauris, a reworking of the ancient Greek play by Euripides; and Torquato Tasso, a verse drama about the eponymous 16th century Italian poet and courtier and his descent into madness. All three feature superb ensemble casts including Paul Daneman, John Rye, Maureen O'Brien, Anton Lesser, Michael Pennington and David Suchet.

To conclude, four bonus documentaries examine Goethe's life, work and influence. In Search of Faust sees poet and singer Twm Morys exploring why artists have been fascinated by this unlikely hero for the last 500 years; while The Sorrows of Young Werther looks at the tragic protagonist of Goethe's 1774 epistolary novel. In Our Goethe and the Science of Enlightenment finds Melvyn Bragg and guests assessing Goethe's scientific legacy, and in The Forum - The story of colour , Bridget Kendal discusses his monumental book The Theory of Colours with art historian Alexandra Loske, writer Victoria Finlay and designer Odette Steele.

First published 1774 (The Sorrows of Young Werther), 1779 (Iphigenia in Tauris), 1788 (Egmont), 1790 (Torquato Tasso), 1795 ('The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily), 1808 (Faust, Part One), 1832 (Faust, Part Two)

Faust: Dramatisation for radio (c) Anthony Vivis 1982. All rights reserved.

Torquato Tasso: Translation (c) Alan and Sandy Brownjohn 1982, all rights reserved.

Production credits
Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Faust

The Sorrows of Young Werther

A Fairy Tale

Egmont

Iphigenia in Tauris

Torquato Tasso

In Search of Faust
Presented by Twm Morys

The Sorrows of Young Werther

In Our Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment
Presented by Melvyn Bragg
With Nicholas Boyle and Simon Schaffer

The Forum - The story of colour
Presented by Bridget Kendall
With Alexandra Loske, Victoria Finlay and Odette Steele

Genres: Classics

Audible Audio

Published October 5, 2023

About the author

A master of poetry, drama, and the novel, German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent 50 years on his two-part dramatic poem Faust , published in 1808 and 1832, also conducted scientific research in various fields, notably botany, and held several governmental positions.

George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Works span the fields of literature, theology, and humanism.
People laud this magnum opus as one of the peaks of world literature. Other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther .

With this key figure of German literature, the movement of Weimar classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries coincided with Enlightenment, sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours , he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also long served as the privy councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar.

Goethe took great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, and Arabia and originated the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"). Despite his major, virtually immeasurable influence on German philosophy especially on the generation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, he expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.

Influence spread across Europe, and for the next century, his works inspired much music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Many persons consider Goethe the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered about painting, perhaps his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that people ultimately would remember his work in optics.

Reviews

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend, one of the best dramatisations i’ve had

[H. F. Greenwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Faust