I am one of those who do not understand music, yet I am not completely
insensible to it. This does not prevent me, however, from entertaining a
strong aversion to all music lovers, and especially to Wagnerites.
When Nietzsche, who apparently possessed a musical temperament, set
Bizet up against Wagner, he confessed, of course, premeditated
vindictiveness. "It is necessary to mediterraneanize music," declares
the German psychologist. But how absurd! Music must confine itself to
the geographical parallel where it was born; it is Mediterranean,
Baltic, Alpine, Siberian. Nor is the contention valid that an air should
always have a strongly marked rhythm, because, if this were the case, we
should have nothing but dance music. Certainly, music was associated
with the dance in the beginning, but a sufficient number of years have
now elapsed to enable each of these arts to develop independently.
As regards Nietzsche's hostility to the theatocracy of Wagner, I share
it fully. This business of substituting the theatre for the church, and
teaching philosophy singing, seems ridiculous to me. I am also out of
patience with the wooden dragons, swans, stage fire, thunder and
lightning.
Although it may sound paradoxical, the fact is that all this scenery is
in the way. I have seen King Lear in Paris, at the Theatre Antoine,
where it was presented with very nearly perfect scenery. When the King
and the fool roamed about the heath in the third act, amid thunder and
lightning, everybody was gazing at the clouds in the flies and watching
for the lightning, or listening to the whistling of the wind; no one
paid any attention to what was said by the characters.