Part 5

It seems to me that my letter is open to some misunderstanding. On certain faces I see the expression of gratitude; I even hear modest but merry laughter. I prefer to be understood here as in other things. But since a certain animal, _the worm of_ Empire, the famous _Rhinoxera,_ has become lodged in the vineyards of the German spirit, nobody any longer understands a word I say. The _Kreuz-Zeitung_ has brought this home to me, not to speak of the _Litterarisches Centralblatt_ I have given the Germans the deepest books that they have ever possessed--a sufficient reason for their not having understood a word of them.... If in this essay I declare war against Wagner--and incidentally against a certain form of German taste, if I seem to use strong language about the cretinism of Bayreuth, it must not be supposed that I am in the least anxious to glorify any other musician. Other musicians are not to be considered by the side of Wagner. Things are generally bad. Decay is universal. Disease lies at the very root of things. If Wagner's name represents the ruin of music, just as Bernini's stands for the ruin of sculpture, he is not on that account its cause. All he did was to accelerate the fall,--though we are quite prepared to admit that he did it in a way which makes one recoil with horror from this almost instantaneous decline and fall to the depths. He possessed the ingenuousness of decadence: this constituted his superiority. He believed in it. He did not halt before any of its logical consequences. The others hesitated--that is their distinction. They have no other. What is common to both Wagner and "the others" consists in this: the decline of all organising power; the abuse of traditional means, without the capacity or the aim that would justify this. The counterfeit imitation of grand forms, for which nobody nowadays is strong, proud, self-reliant and healthy enough; excessive vitality in small details; passion at all costs; refinement as an expression of impoverished life, ever more nerves in the place of muscle. I know only one musician who to-day would be able to compose an overture as an organic whole: and nobody else knows him.[7] He who is famous now, does not write better music than Wagner, but only less characteristic, less definite music:--less definite, because half measures, even in decadence, cannot stand by the side of completeness. But Wagner was complete; Wagner represented thorough corruption; Wagner has had the courage, the will, and the conviction for corruption. What does Johannes Brahms matter? ... It was his good fortune to be misunderstood by Germany he was taken to be an antagonist of Wagner--people required an antagonist!--But he did not write necessary music, above all he wrote too much music!--When one is not rich one should at least have enough pride to be poor!... The sympathy which here and there was meted out to Brahms, apart from party interests and party misunderstandings, was for a long time a riddle to me: until one day through an accident, almost, I discovered that he affected a particular type of man. He has the melancholy of impotence. His creations are not the result of plenitude, he thirsts after abundance. Apart from what he plagiarises, from what he borrows from ancient or exotically modern styles--he is a master in the art of copying,--there remains as his most individual quality a _longing...._ And this is what the dissatisfied of all kinds, and all those who yearn, divine in him. He is much too little of a personality, too little of a central figure.... The "impersonal," those who are not self-centred, love him for this. He is especially the musician of a species of dissatisfied women. Fifty steps further on, and we find the female Wagnerite--just as we find Wagner himself fifty paces ahead of Brahms.--The female Wagnerite is a more definite, a more interesting, and above all, a more attractive type. Brahms is touching so long as he dreams or mourns over himself in private--in this respect he is modern;--he becomes cold, we no longer feel at one with him when he poses as the child of the classics. ... People like to call Brahms Beethoven's heir: I know of no more cautious euphemism.--All that which to-day makes a claim to being the grand style in music is on precisely that account either false to us or false to itself. This alternative is suspicious enough: in itself it contains a casuistic question concerning the value of the two cases. The instinct of the majority protests against the alternative; "false to us"--they do not wish to be cheated;--and I myself would certainly always prefer this type to the other ("False to itself"). This is _my_ taste.--Expressed more clearly for the sake of the "poor in spirit" it amounts to this: Brahms _or_ Wagner.... Brahms is _not_ an actor.--A very great part of other musicians may be summed up in the concept Brahms.--I do not wish to say anything about the clever apes of Wagner, as for instance Goldmark: when one has "The Queen of Sheba" to one's name, one belongs to a menagerie,--one ought to put oneself on show.--Nowadays all things that can be done well and even with a master hand are small. In this department alone is honesty still possible. Nothing, however, can cure music as a whole of its chief fault, of its fate, which is to be the expression of general physiological contradiction,--which is, in fact, to be modern.

The best instruction, the most conscientious schooling, the most thorough familiarity, yea, and even isolation, with the Old Masters,--all this only acts as a palliative, or, more strictly speaking, has but an illusory effect, because the first condition of the right thing is no longer in our bodies; whether this first condition be the strong race of a Händel or the overflowing animal spirits of a Rossini. Not everyone has the right to every teacher: and this holds good of whole epochs.--In itself it is not impossible that there are still remains of stronger natures, typical unadapted men, somewhere in Europe: from this quarter the advent of a somewhat belated form of beauty and perfection, even in music, might still be hoped for. But the most that we can expect to see are exceptional cases. From the rule, that corruption is paramount, that corruption is a fatality,--not even a God can save music.

EPILOGUE

And now let us take breath and withdraw a moment from this narrow world which necessarily must be narrow, because we have to make enquiries relative to the value of _persons._ A philosopher feels that he wants to wash his hands after he has concerned himself so long with the "Case of Wagner." I shall now give my notion of what is _modern._ According to the measure of energy of every age, there is also a standard that determines which virtues shall be allowed and which forbidden. The age either has the virtues of _ascending_ life, in which case it resists the virtues of degeneration with all its deepest instincts. Or it is in itself an age of degeneration, in which case it requires the virtues of declining life,--in which case it hates everything that justifies itself, solely as being the outcome of a plenitude, or a superabundance of strength. Æsthetic is inextricably bound up with these biological principles: there is decadent æsthetic, and _classical_ æsthetic,--"Beauty in itself" is just as much a chimera as any other kind of idealism.--Within the narrow sphere of the so-called moral values, no greater antithesis could be found than that of _master-morality_ and the morality of _Christian_ valuations: the latter having grown out of a thoroughly morbid soil. (--The gospels present us with the same physiological types, as do the novels of Dostoiewsky), the master-morality ("Roman," "pagan," "classical," "Renaissance"), on the other hand, being the symbolic speech of well-constitutedness, of _ascending_ life, and of the Will to Power as a vital principle. Master-morality _affirms_ just as instinctively as Christian morality _denies_ ("God," "Beyond," "self-denial,"--all of them negations). The first reflects its plenitude upon things,--it transfigures, it embellishes, it _rationalises_ the world,--the latter impoverishes, bleaches, mars the value of things; it _suppresses_ the world. "World" is a Christian term of abuse. These antithetical forms in the optics of values, are _both_ necessary: they are different points of view which cannot be circumvented either with arguments or counter-arguments. One cannot refute Christianity: it is impossible to refute a diseased eyesight. That people should have combated pessimism as if it had been a philosophy, was the very acme of learned stupidity. The concepts "true" and "untrue" do not seem to me to have any sense in optics.--That, alone, which has to be guarded against is the falsity, the instinctive duplicity which _would fain_ regard this antithesis as no antithesis at all: just as Wagner did,--and his mastery in this kind of falseness was of no mean order. To cast side-long glances at master-morality, at _noble_ morality (--Icelandic saga is perhaps the greatest documentary evidence of these values), and at the same time to have the opposite teaching, the "gospel of the lowly," the doctrine of the _need_ of salvation, on one's lips!... Incidentally, I admire the modesty of Christians who go to Bayreuth. As for myself, I could _not_ endure to hear the sound of certain words on Wagner's lips. There are some concepts which are too good for Bayreuth.... What? Christianity adjusted for female Wagnerites, perhaps _by_ female Wagnerites--for, in his latter days Wagner was thoroughly _feminini generis--?_ Again I say, the Christians of to-day are too modest for me,... If Wagner were a Christian, then Liszt was perhaps a Father of the Church!--The need of _salvation,_ the quintessence of all Christian needs, has nothing in common with such clowns: it is the most straightforward expression of decadence, it is the most convincing and most painful affirmation of decadence, in sublime symbols and practices. The Christian wishes _to be rid_ of himself. _Le mot est toujours haïssable._ Noble morality, master-morality, on the other hand, is rooted in a triumphant saying of yea to _one's self,_--it is the self-affirmation and self-glorification of life; it also requires sublime symbols and practices; but only "because its heart is too full." The whole of beautiful art and of great art belongs here: their common essence is gratitude. But we must allow it a certain instinctive repugnance _to décadents,_ and a scorn and horror of the latter's symbolism: such things almost prove it. The noble Romans considered Christianity as a _fœda superstitio_: let me call to your minds the feelings which the last German of noble taste--Goethe--had in regard to the cross. It is idle to look for more valuable, more _necessary_ contrasts....[8]

But the kind of falsity which is characteristic of the Bayreuthians is not exceptional to-day. We all know the hybrid concept of the Christian gentleman. This _innocence_ in contradiction, this "clean conscience" in falsehood, is rather modern _par excellence,_ with it modernity is almost defined. Biologically, modern man represents a _contradiction of values,_ he sits between two stools, he says yea and nay in one breath. No wonder that it is precisely in our age that falseness itself became flesh and blood, and even genius! No wonder _Wagner_ dwelt amongst us! It was not without reason that I called Wagner the Cagliostro of modernity.... But all of us, though we do not know it, involuntarily have values, words, formulæ, and morals in our bodies, which are quite _antagonistic_ in their origin--regarded from a physiological standpoint, we are _false...._ How would a _diagnosis of the modern soul_ begin? With a determined incision into this agglomeration of contradictory instincts, with the total suppression of its antagonistic values, with vivisection applied to its most _instructive_ case. To philosophers the "Case of Wagner" is a _windfall_--this essay, as you observe, was inspired by gratitude.

[Footnote 1: Senta is the heroine in the "Flying Dutchman,"--Tr.]

[Footnote 2: A character in "Tannhäuser."--_Tr._]

[Footnote 3: See "The Will to Power," vol. ii, authorised English edition.--_Tr._]

[Footnote 4: _Note._--It was a real disaster for æsthetics when the word drama got to be translated by "action." Wagner is not the only culprit here; the whole world does the same;--even the philologists who ought to know better. What ancient drama had in view was _grand pathetic scenes,_--it even excluded action (or placed it _before_ the piece or _behind_ the scenes). The word drama is of Doric origin, and according to the usage of the Dorian language it meant "event," "history,"--both words in a hieratic sense. The oldest drama represented local legends, "sacred history," upon which the foundation of the cult rested (--thus it was not "action," but fatality: dran in Doric has nothing to do with action).]

[Footnote 5: Hegel and his school wrote notoriously obscure German. --_Tr._]

[Footnote 6: Was Wagner a German at all? There are reasons enough for putting this question. It is difficult to find a single German trait in his character. Great learner that he was, he naturally imitated a great deal that was German--but that is all. His very soul contradicts everything which hitherto has been regarded as German; not to mention German musicians!--His father was an actor of the name of Geyer.... That which has been popularised hitherto as "Wagner's life" is _fable convenue_ if not something worse. I confess my doubts on any point which is vouched for by Wagner alone. He was not proud enough to be able to suffer the truth about himself. Nobody had less pride than he. Like Victor Hugo he remained true to himself even in his biography,--he remained an actor.]

[Footnote 7: This undoubtedly refers to Nietzsche's only disciple and friend, Peter Gast.--_Tr._]

[Footnote 8: My "Genealogy of Morals" contains the best exposition of the antithesis _"noble morality"_ and _"Christian_ _morality_"; a more decisive turning point in the history of religious and moral science does not perhaps exist. This book, which is a touchstone by which I can discover who are my peers, rejoices in being accessible only to the most elevated and most severe minds: the others have not the ears to hear me. One must have one's passion in things, _wherein_ no one has passion nowadays.]

NIETZSCHE _CONTRA_ WAGNER

THE BRIEF OF A PSYCHOLOGIST

By

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

PREFACE

The following chapters have been selected from past works of mine, and not without care. Some of them date back as far as 1877. Here and there, of course, they will be found to have been made a little more intelligible, but above all, more brief. Read consecutively, they can leave no one in any doubt, either concerning myself, or concerning Wagner: we are antipodes. The reader will come to other conclusions, too, in his perusal of these pages: for instance, that this is an essay for psychologists and _not_ for Germans.... I have my readers everywhere, in Vienna, St Petersburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Paris, and New York--but _1 have none_ in Europe's Flat-land--Germany.... And I might even have something to say to Italians whom I love just as much as I ... _Quousque tandem, Crispi_ ... Triple alliance: a people can only conclude a _misalliance_ with the "Empire." ...

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.

TURIN, _Christmas_ 1888.

NIETZSCHE _CONTRA_ WAGNER

WHEREIN I ADMIRE WAGNER.

I believe that artists very often do not know what they are best able to do. They are much too vain. Their minds are directed to something prouder than merely to appear like little plants, which, with freshness, rareness, and beauty, know how to sprout from their soil with real perfection. The ultimate goodness of their own garden and vineyard is superciliously under-estimated by them, and their love and their insight are not of the same quality. Here is a musician who is a greater master than anyone else in the discovering of tones, peculiar to suffering, oppressed, and tormented souls, who can endow even dumb misery with speech. Nobody can approach him in the colours of late autumn, in the indescribably touching joy of a last, a very last, and all too short gladness; he knows of a chord which expresses those secret and weird midnight hours of the soul, when cause and effect seem to have fallen asunder, and at every moment something may spring out of nonentity. He is happiest of all when creating from out the nethermost depths of human happiness, and, so to speak, from out man's empty bumper, in which the bitterest and most repulsive drops have mingled with the sweetest for good or evil at last. He knows that weary shuffling along of the soul which is no longer able either to spring or to fly, nay, which is no longer able to walk; he has the modest glance of concealed suffering, of understanding without comfort, of leave-taking without word or sign; verily as the Orpheus of all secret misery he is greater than anyone, and many a thing was introduced into art for the first time by him, which hitherto had not been given expression, had not even been thought worthy of art--the cynical revolts, for instance, of which only the greatest sufferer is capable, also many a small and quite microscopical feature of the soul, as it were the scales of its amphibious nature--yes indeed, he is the master of everything very small. But this he refuses to be! His tastes are much more in love with vast walls and with daring frescoes! ... He does not see that his spirit has another desire and bent--a totally different outlook--that it prefers to squat peacefully in the corners of broken-down houses: concealed in this way, and hidden even from himself, he paints his really great masterpieces, all of which are very short, often only one bar in length--there, only, does he become quite good, great and perfect, perhaps there alone.--Wagner is one who has suffered much--and this elevates him above other musicians.--I admire Wagner wherever he sets _himself_ to music.--

WHEREIN I RAISE OBJECTIONS.

With all this I do not wish to imply that I regard this music as healthy, and least of all in those places where it speaks of Wagner himself. My objections to Wagner's music are physiological objections. Why should I therefore begin by clothing them in æsthetic formulæ? Æsthetic is indeed nothing more than applied physiology.--The fact I bring forward, my _"petit fait vrai"_ is that I can no longer breathe with ease when this music begins to have its effect upon me; that my foot immediately begins to feel indignant at it and rebels: for what it needs is time, dance, march: even the young German Kaiser could not march to Wagner's Imperial March,--what my foot demands in the first place from music is that ecstasy which lies in good walking, stepping and dancing. But do not my stomach, my heart, my circulation also protest? Are not my intestines also troubled? And do I not become hoarse unawares? ... in order to listen to Wagner I require Géraudel's Pastilles.... And then I ask myself, what is it that my whole body must have from music in general? for there is no such thing as a soul.... I believe it must have relief: as if all animal functions were accelerated by means of light, bold, unfettered, self-reliant rhythms; as if brazen and leaden life could lose its weight by means of delicate and smooth melodies. My melancholy would fain rest its head in the haunts and abysses of perfection: for this reason I need music. But Wagner makes one ill--What do I care about the theatre? What do I care about the spasms of its moral ecstasies in which the mob--and who is not the mob to-day?--rejoices? What do I care about the whole pantomimic hocus-pocus of the actor? You are beginning to see that I am essentially anti-theatrical at heart. For the stage, this mob art _par excellence,_ my soul has that deepest scorn felt by every artist to-day. With a stage success a man sinks to such an extent in my esteem as to drop out of sight; failure in this quarter makes me prick my ears, makes me begin to pay attention. But this was not so with Wagner; next to the Wagner who created the most unique music that has ever existed there was the Wagner who was essentially a man of the stage, an actor, the most enthusiastic mimomaniac that has perhaps existed on earth, even as a musician. And let it be said _en passant_ that if Wagner's theory was "drama is the object, music is only a means"--his practice was from beginning to end, the attitude is the end, drama and even music can never be anything else than means." Music as the manner of accentuating, of strengthening, and deepening dramatic poses and all things which please the senses of the actor; and Wagnerian drama only an opportunity for a host of interesting attitudes!--Alongside of all other instincts he had the dictatorial instinct of a great actor in everything: and, as I have already said, as a musician also.--On one occasion, and not without trouble, I made this clear to a Wagnerite _pur sang,_--clearness and a Wagnerite! I won't say another word. There were reasons for adding; "For heaven's sake, be a little more true unto yourself! We are not in Bayreuth now. In Bayreuth people are only upright in the mass; the individual lies, he even lies to himself. One leaves oneself at home when one goes to Bayreuth, one gives up all right to one's own tongue and choice, to one's own taste and even to one's own courage, one knows these things no longer as one is wont to have them and practise them before God and the world and between one's own four walls. In the theatre no one brings the finest senses of his art with him, and least of all the artist who works for the theatre,--for here loneliness is lacking; everything perfect does not suffer a witness.... In the theatre one becomes mob, herd, woman, Pharisee, electing cattle, patron, idiot--Wagnerite: there, the most personal conscience is bound to submit to the levelling charm of the great multitude, there the neighbour rules, there one _becomes_ a neighbour."

WAGNER AS A DANGER.

1.

The aim after which more modern music is striving, which is now given the strong but obscure name of "unending melody," can be clearly understood by comparing it to one's feelings on entering the sea. Gradually one loses one's footing and one ultimately abandons oneself to the mercy or fury of the elements: one has to swim. In the solemn, or fiery, swinging movement, first slow and then quick, of old music--one had to do something quite different; one had to dance. The measure which was required for this and the control of certain balanced degrees of time and energy, forced the soul of the listener to continual sobriety of thought.--Upon the counterplay of the cooler currents of air which came from this sobriety, and from the warmer breath of enthusiasm, the charm of all good music rested--Richard Wagner wanted another kind of movement,--he overthrew the physiological first principle of all music before his time. It was no longer a matter of walking or dancing,--we must swim, we must hover.... This perhaps decides the whole matter. "Unending melody" really wants to break all the symmetry of time and strength; it actually scorns these things--Its wealth of invention resides precisely in what to an older ear sounds like rhythmic paradox and abuse. From the imitation or the prevalence of such a taste there would arise a danger for music--so great that we can imagine none greater--the complete degeneration of the feeling for rhythm, _chaos_ in the place of rhythm.... The danger reaches its climax when such music cleaves ever more closely to naturalistic play-acting and pantomime, which governed by no laws of form, aim at effect and nothing more.... Expressiveness at all costs and music a servant, a slave to attitudes--this is the end....

2.