The name of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra comes from a collection of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer comparable to Shakespeare in terms of his impact on his own language, and a figure to whom you pay tribute each time you utter the phrase "sell your soul to the devil." At the age of 60 he began to study Arabic and became interested in Islam. Some Muslims, in fact, believe that he experienced a de facto conversion and should be referred to as Muhammad Johann Wolfgang Goethe. His West-Östlicher Divan ...
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The name of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra comes from a collection of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer comparable to Shakespeare in terms of his impact on his own language, and a figure to whom you pay tribute each time you utter the phrase "sell your soul to the devil." At the age of 60 he began to study Arabic and became interested in Islam. Some Muslims, in fact, believe that he experienced a de facto conversion and should be referred to as Muhammad Johann Wolfgang Goethe. His West-Östlicher Divan or Western-Eastern Divan (a divan here is a collection of literary works, not a sofa) is a collection of poems inspired by a translation of Persian poetry, not Arabic. Nevertheless, the name gives the right kind of background for the daring project undertaken by conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian-American writer Edward Said. In 1998 they brought together an equal number of Palestinian and Israeli musicians, added other players (some of them Egyptian and Jordanian) in...
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