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    The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner
    The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner
    The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner

    By Friedrich Nietzsche

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    "The Case of Wagner" is a critique of German composer Richard Wagner in which Friedrich Nietzsche makes a very public split with the musician. Nietzsche found himself at odds with Wagner's increasing involvement in the Völkisch movement and anti-Semitism. The critique of Wagner is something that is seen throughout Nietzsche's work, beginning with "The Birth of Tragedy", wherein he praised Wagner as fulfilling a need in music to go beyond the analytic and dispassionate understanding of music. Further praise for the musician can be found in Nietzsche's essay 'Wagner at Bayreuth', contained in "Untimely Meditations". However in "Human, All Too Human", Nietzsche begins to express his disillusion with Wagner the composer and the man. "The Case of Wagner" was one of the last works authored by Nietzsche. It was followed by "Nietzsche contra Wagner", also included in this edition, in which Nietzsche summarizes his criticisms of Wagner from his previous writings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9781420948813
    The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner
    Author

    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) on saksalainen filosofi, runoilija ja filologi.

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      Book preview

      The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner - Friedrich Nietzsche

      cover.jpg

      THE CASE OF WAGNER AND NIETZSCHE CONTRA WAGNER

      BY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

      TRANSLATED BY THOMAS COMMON

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4881-3

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4880-6

      This edition copyright © 2013

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      THE CASE OF WAGNER:

      NIETZSCHE CONTRA WAGNER:

      THE CASE OF WAGNER:

      A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM: BEING A LETTER FROM TURIN, MAY 1888

      ridendo dicere severum . . . .

      PREFACE

      I relieve myself a little. It is not solely out of sheer wickedness that I praise Bizet at the expense of Wagner in this work. In the midst of much pleasantry, I bring forward a case which is serious enough. It was my fate to turn the back on Wagner; to be fond of aught afterwards was a triumph. No one, perhaps, had been more dangerously entangled in Wagnerism, no one has defended himself harder against it, no one has been more glad to get rid of it. A long history!—Is there a word wanted for it?—If I were a moralist, who knows how I should designate it! Perhaps self-overcoming.—But the philosopher never loves moralists . . . neither does he love fancy words . . .

      What does a philosopher firstly and lastly require of himself? To overcome his age in himself, to become timeless. With what, then, has he to wage the hardest strife? With the characteristics in which he is just the child of his age. Well! I am the child of this age, just like Wagner, i.e. a décadent; I am, however, conscious of it; I defended myself against it. My philosophic spirit defended itself against it.

      The problem of décadence is, in fact, that which has occupied me most profoundly;—I have had reasons for it. Good and Evil is only a variety of that problem. When one has learned to discern the symptoms of decline, one also understands morality,—one understands what conceals itself under its holiest names and valuation-formulae; namely, impoverished life, desire for the end, great lassitude. Morality negatives life . . . For such a task I required some self-discipline:—I had to engage in combat against whatever was morbid in me, including Wagner, including Schopenhauer, including all modern humanity.—A profound estrangement, coolness, and sobriety with reference to everything temporary or opportune; and as my highest wish, the eye of Zarathushtra, an eye, which, exalted to an immense height, surveys the whole phenomenon of man,—looks down on it . . . To attain such an object—what sacrifice would not be appropriate? What self-overcoming! What self-denying!

      My most important experience was a convalescence; Wagner belongs only to my maladies.

      Not that I would wish to be ungrateful to this malady. If in this work I maintain the proposition that Wagner is hurtful, I want none the less to maintain to whom, in spite of it all, Wagner is indispensable—to the philosopher. In other departments people may perhaps get along without Wagner; the philosopher, however, is not free to dispense with him.

      The philosopher has to be the bad conscience of his time; for that purpose he must possess its best knowledge. But where would he find a better initiated guide for the labyrinth of modern soul, a more eloquent psychological expert than Wagner? Modernism speaks its most familiar language in Wagner: it conceals neither its good nor its evil, it has lost all its sense of shame. And reversely: when one has formed a clear notion about what is good and evil in Wagner, one has almost determined the value of modernism.—I understand perfectly, when a musician says now, I hate Wagner, but I no longer stand any other music. I should however also understand a philosopher who declared, "Wagner summarises modernism. There is no help for it; we must first be Wagnerians". . .

      1

      I heard yesterday—will you believe it?—the masterpiece of Bizet for the twentieth time. I again held out with meek devotion, I again succeeded in not running away. This victory over my impatience surprises me. How such a work perfects one! One becomes a masterpiece one's self by its influence.—And really, I have appeared to myself, every time I have heard Carmen, to be more of a philosopher, a better philosopher than at other times: I have become so patient, so happy, so Indian, so sedate . . . Five hours sitting: the first stage of holiness! May I venture to say that Bizet's orchestra music is almost the sole orchestration I yet endure? That other orchestra music which is all the rage at present, the Wagnerian orchestration, at once brutal, artificial, and innocent—thereby speaking to the three senses of modern soul at the same time,—how detrimental to me is that Wagnerian orchestration! I call it the Sirocco. An unpleasant sweat breaks out on me. My good time is at an end.

      This music seems to me to be perfect. It approaches lightly, nimbly, and with courtesy. It is amiable, it does not produce sweat. What is good is easy; everything divine runs with light feet:—the first proposition of my Æsthetics. This music is wicked, subtle, and fatalistic; it remains popular at the same time,—it has the subtlety of a race, not of an individual. It is rich. It is precise. It builds, it organises, it completes; it is thus the antithesis to the polypus in music, infinite melody. Have more painful, tragic accents ever been heard on the stage? And how are they obtained? Without grimace! Without counterfeit coinage! Without the imposture of the grand style! Finally, this music takes the auditor for an intelligent being, even for a musician; here also Bizet is the contrast to Wagner, who, whatever else he was, was certainly the most uncourteous genius in the world. (Wagner takes us just as if

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