were well, to try and discover the actual reason of this. Is it perhaps
that Wagner’s music is too difficult to understand? Or did he fear
precisely the reverse—that it was too easy,—that people might _not
understand it with sufficient difficulty_?—As a matter of fact, his whole
life long, he did nothing but repeat one proposition: that his music did
not mean music alone! But something more! Something immeasurably more!…
“_Not music alone_”—_no_ musician would speak in this way. I repeat,
Wagner could not create things as a whole; he had no choice, he was
obliged to create things in bits, with “motives,” attitudes, formulæ,
duplications, and hundreds of repetitions, he remained a rhetorician in
music,—and that is why he was at bottom _forced_ to press “this means”
into the foreground. “Music can never be anything else than a means”: this
was his theory, but above all it was the only _practice_ that lay open to
him. No musician however thinks in this way.—Wagner was in need of
literature, in order to persuade the whole world to take his music
seriously, profoundly, “because it _meant_ an infinity of things”, all his
life he was the commentator of the “Idea.”—What does Elsa stand for? But
without a doubt, Elsa is “the unconscious _mind of the people_” (—“when I
realised this, I naturally became a thorough revolutionist”—).
Do not let us forget that, when Hegel and Schelling were misleading the
minds of Germany, Wagner was still young: that he guessed, or rather fully
grasped, that the only thing which Germans take seriously is—“the
idea,”—that is to say, something obscure, uncertain, wonderful; that among
Germans lucidity is an objection, logic a refutation. Schopenhauer
rigorously pointed out the dishonesty of Hegel’s and Schelling’s
age,—rigorously, but also unjustly, for he himself, the pessimistic old
counterfeiter, was in no way more “honest” than his more famous
contemporaries. But let us leave morality out of the question, Hegel is a
_matter of taste_.… And not only of German but of European taste!… A taste
which Wagner understood!—which he felt equal to! which he has
immortalised!—All he did was to apply it to music—he invented a style for
himself, which might mean an “infinity of things,”—he was _Hegel’s_ heir.…
Music as “Idea.”—
And how well Wagner was understood!—The same kind of man who used to gush
over Hegel, now gushes over Wagner, in his school they even _write_
Hegelian.(11) But he who understood Wagner best, was the German youthlet.
The two words “infinity” and “meaning” were sufficient for this: at their
sound the youthlet immediately began to feel exceptionally happy. Wagner
did _not_ conquer these boys with music, but with the “idea”:—it is the
enigmatical vagueness of his art, its game of hide-and-seek amid a hundred
symbols, its polychromy in ideals, which leads and lures the lads. It is
Wagner’s genius for forming clouds, his sweeps and swoops through the air,
his ubiquity and nullibiety—precisely the same qualities with which Hegel
led and lured in his time!—Moreover in the presence of Wagner’s
multifariousness, plenitude and arbitrariness, they seem to themselves
justified—“saved”. Tremulously they listen while the _great symbols_ in
his art seem to make themselves heard from out the misty distance, with a
gentle roll of thunder, and they are not at all displeased if at times it
gets a little grey, gruesome and cold. Are they not one and all, like
Wagner himself, on _quite intimate terms_ with bad weather, with German
weather! Wotan is their God, but Wotan is the God of bad weather.… They
are right, how could these German youths—in their present condition,—miss
what we others, we _halcyonians_, miss in Wagner? _i.e._: _la gaya
scienza_; light feet, wit, fire, grave, grand logic, stellar dancing,
wanton intellectuality, the vibrating light of the South, the calm
sea—perfection.…
11.
—I have mentioned the sphere to which Wagner belongs—certainly not to the
history of music. What, however, does he mean historically?—_The rise of
the actor in music_: a momentous event which not only leads me to think
but also to fear.
In a word: “Wagner and Liszt.” Never yet have the “uprightness” and
“genuineness” of musicians been put to such a dangerous test. It is
glaringly obvious: great success, mob success is no longer the achievement
of the genuine,—in order to get it a man must be an actor!—Victor Hugo and
Richard Wagner—they both prove one and the same thing: that in declining
civilisations, wherever the mob is allowed to decide, genuineness becomes
superfluous, prejudicial, unfavourable. The actor, alone, can still kindle
_great_ enthusiasm.—And thus it is his _golden age_ which is now
dawning,—his and that of all those who are in any way related to him. With
drums and fifes, Wagner marches at the head of all artists in declamation,
in display and virtuosity. He began by convincing the conductors of
orchestras, the scene-shifters and stage-singers, not to forget the
orchestra:—he “delivered” them from monotony.… The movement that Wagner
created has spread even to the land of knowledge: whole sciences
pertaining to music are rising slowly, out of centuries of scholasticism.
As an example of what I mean, let me point more particularly to
_Riemann’s_ services to rhythmics; he was the first who called attention
to the leading idea in punctuation—even for music (unfortunately he did so
with a bad word; he called it “phrasing”).—All these people, and I say it
with gratitude, are the best, the most respectable among Wagner’s
admirers—they have a perfect right to honour Wagner. The same instinct
unites them with one another; in him they recognise their highest type,
and since he has inflamed them with his own ardour they feel themselves
transformed into power, even into great power. In this quarter, if
anywhere, Wagner’s influence has really been _beneficent_. Never before
has there been so much thinking, willing, and industry in this sphere.
Wagner endowed all these artists with a new conscience: what they now
exact and _obtain_ from themselves, they had never exacted before Wagner’s
time—before then they had been too modest. Another spirit prevails on the
stage since Wagner rules there the most difficult things are expected,
blame is severe, praise very scarce,—the good and the excellent have
become the rule. Taste is no longer necessary, nor even is a good voice.
Wagner is sung only with ruined voices: this has a more “dramatic” effect.
Even talent is out of the question. Expressiveness at all costs, which is
what the Wagnerian ideal—the ideal of decadence—demands, is hardly
compatible with talent. All that is required for this is virtue—that is to
say, training, automatism, “self-denial”. Neither taste, voices, nor
gifts, Wagner’s stage requires but one thing: _Germans!_… The definition
of a German: an obedient man with long legs.… There is a deep significance
in the fact that the rise of Wagner should have coincided with the rise of
the “Empire”: both phenomena are a proof of one and the same
thing—obedience and long legs.—Never have people been more obedient, never
have they been so well ordered about. The conductors of Wagnerian
orchestras, more particularly, are worthy of an age, which posterity will
one day call, with timid awe, the _classical age of war_.
Wagner understood how to command; in this respect, too, he was a great
teacher. He commanded as a man who had exercised an inexorable will over
himself—as one who had practised lifelong discipline: Wagner was, perhaps,
the greatest example of self-violence in the whole of the history of art
(—even Alfieri, who in other respects is his next-of-kin, is outdone by
him. The note of a Torinese).
12.
This view, that our actors have become more worthy of respect than
heretofore, does not imply that I believe them to have become less
dangerous.… But who is in any doubt as to what I want,—as to what the
_three requisitions_ are concerning which my wrath and my care and love of
art, have made me open my mouth on this occasion?
_That the stage should not become master of the arts._
_That the actor should not become the corrupter of the genuine._
_That music should not become an art of lying._
_Friedrich Nietzsche._
Postscript
The gravity of these last words allows me at this point to introduce a few
sentences out of an unprinted essay which will at least leave no doubt as
to my earnestness in regard to this question. The title of this essay is:
“What Wagner has cost us.”
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. Even to-day a vague
feeling that this is so, still prevails. Even Wagner’s success, his
triumph, did not uproot this feeling thoroughly. But formerly it was
strong, it was terrible, it was a gloomy hate throughout almost
three-quarters of Wagner’s life. The resistance which he met with among us
Germans cannot be too highly valued or too highly honoured. People guarded
themselves against him as against an illness,—not with arguments—it is
impossible to refute an illness,—but with obstruction, with mistrust, with
repugnance, with loathing, with sombre earnestness, as though he were a
great rampant danger. The æsthetes gave themselves away when out of three
schools of German philosophy they waged an absurd war against Wagner’s
principles with “ifs” and “fors”—what did he care about principles, even
his own!—The Germans themselves had enough instinctive good sense to
dispense with every “if” and “for” in this matter. An instinct is weakened
when it becomes conscious: for by becoming conscious it makes itself
feeble. If there were any signs that in spite of the universal character
of European decadence there was still a modicum of health, still an
instinctive premonition of what is harmful and dangerous, residing in the
German soul, then it would be precisely this blunt resistance to Wagner
which I should least like to see underrated. It does us honour, it gives
us some reason to hope: France no longer has such an amount of health at
her disposal. The Germans, these _loiterers par excellence_, as history
shows, are to-day the most backward among the civilised nations of Europe;
this has its advantages,—for they are thus relatively the youngest.
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. It is only quite
recently that the Germans have overcome a sort of dread of him,—the desire
to be rid of him occurred to them again and again.(12) Does anybody
remember a very curious occurrence in which, quite unexpectedly towards
the end, this old feeling once more manifested itself? It happened at
Wagner’s funeral. The first Wagner Society, the one in Munich, laid a
wreath on his grave with this inscription, which immediately became
famous: “Salvation to the Saviour!” Everybody admired the lofty
inspiration which had dictated this inscription, as also the taste which
seemed to be the privilege of the followers of Wagner. Many also, however
(it was singular enough), made this slight alteration in it: “Salvation
_from_ the Saviour”—People began to breathe again—
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. Let us try to
estimate the influence of this worship upon culture. Whom did this
movement press to the front? What did it make ever more and more
pre-eminent?—In the first place the layman’s arrogance, the arrogance of
the art-maniac. Now these people are organising societies, they wish to
make their taste prevail, they even wish to pose as judges _in rebus
musicis et musicantibus_. Secondly: an ever increasing indifference
towards severe, noble and conscientious schooling in the service of art,
and in its place the belief in genius, or in plain English, cheeky
dilettantism (—the formula for this is to be found in the
_Mastersingers_). Thirdly, and this is the worst of all: _Theatrocracy_—,
the craziness of a belief in the pre-eminence of the theatre, in the right
of the theatre to rule supreme over the arts, over Art in general.… But
this should be shouted into the face of Wagnerites a hundred times over:
that the theatre is something lower than art, something secondary,
something coarsened, above all something suitably distorted and falsified
for the mob. In this respect Wagner altered nothing: Bayreuth is grand
Opera—and not even good opera.… The stage is a form of Demolatry in the
realm of taste, the stage is an insurrection of the mob, a _plébiscite_
against good taste.… The case of Wagner proves this fact: he captivated
the masses—he depraved taste, he even perverted our taste for opera!—
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. What has
Wagner-worship made out of spirit? Does Wagner liberate the spirit? To him
belong that ambiguity and equivocation and all other qualities which can
convince the uncertain without making them conscious of why they have been
convinced. In this sense Wagner is a seducer on a grand scale. There is
nothing exhausted, nothing effete, nothing dangerous to life, nothing that
slanders the world in the realm of spirit, which has not secretly found
shelter in his art, he conceals the blackest obscurantism in the luminous
orbs of the ideal. He flatters every nihilistic (Buddhistic) instinct and
togs it out in music; he flatters every form of Christianity, every
religious expression of decadence. He that hath ears to hear let him hear:
everything that has ever grown out of the soil of impoverished life, the
whole counterfeit coinage of the transcendental and of a Beyond found its
most sublime advocate in Wagner’s art, not in formulæ (Wagner is too
clever to use formulæ), but in the persuasion of the senses which in their
turn makes the spirit weary and morbid. Music in the form of Circe … in
this respect his last work is his greatest masterpiece. In the art of
seduction “Parsifal” will for ever maintain its rank as a stroke of
genius.… I admire this work. I would fain have composed it myself. Wagner
was never better inspired than towards the end. The subtlety with which
beauty and disease are united here, reaches such a height, that it casts
so to speak a shadow upon all Wagner’s earlier achievements: it seems too
bright, too healthy. Do ye understand this? Health and brightness acting
like a shadow? Almost like an objection?… To this extent are we already
pure fools.… Never was there a greater Master in heavy hieratic
perfumes—Never on earth has there been such a connoisseur of paltry
infinities, of all that thrills, of extravagant excesses, of all the
feminism from out the vocabulary of happiness! My friends, do but drink
the philtres of this art! Nowhere will ye find a more pleasant method of
enervating your spirit, of forgetting your manliness in the shade of a
rosebush.… Ah, this old magician, mightiest of Klingsors; how he wages war
against us with his art, against us free spirits! How he appeals to every
form of cowardice of the modern soul with his charming girlish notes!
There never was such a _mortal hatred_ of knowledge! One must be a very
cynic in order to resist seduction here. One must be able to bite in order
to resist worshipping at this shrine. Very well, old seducer! The cynic
cautions you—_cave canem_.…
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. I contemplate the
youthlets who have long been exposed to his infection. The first
relatively innocuous effect of it is the corruption of their taste. Wagner
acts like chronic recourse to the bottle. He stultifies, he befouls the
stomach. His specific effect: degeneration of the feeling for rhythm. What
the Wagnerite calls rhythmical is what I call, to use a Greek metaphor,
“stirring a swamp.” Much more dangerous than all this, however, is the
corruption of ideas. The youthlet becomes a moon-calf, an “idealist”. He
stands above science, and in this respect he has reached the master’s
heights. On the other hand, he assumes the airs of a philosopher, he
writes for the _Bayreuth Journal_; he solves all problems in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Master. But the most ghastly thing of
all is the deterioration of the nerves. Let any one wander through a large
city at night, in all directions he will hear people doing violence to
instruments with solemn rage and fury, a wild uproar breaks out at
intervals. What is happening? It is the disciples of Wagner in the act of
worshipping him.… Bayreuth is another word for a Hydro. A typical telegram
from Bayreuth would read _bereits bereut_ (I already repent). Wagner is
bad for young men; he is fatal for women. What medically speaking is a
female Wagnerite? It seems to me that a doctor could not be too serious in
putting this alternative of conscience to young women; either one thing or
the other. But they have already made their choice. You cannot serve two
Masters when one of these is Wagner. Wagner redeemed woman; and in return
woman built Bayreuth for him. Every sacrifice, every surrender: there was
nothing that they were not prepared to give him. Woman impoverishes
herself in favour of the Master, she becomes quite touching, she stands
naked before him. The female Wagnerite, the most attractive equivocality
that exists to-day: she is the incarnation of Wagner’s cause: his cause
triumphs with her as its symbol.… Ah, this old robber! He robs our young
men: he even robs our women as well, and drags them to his cell.… Ah, this
old Minotaur! What has he not already cost us? Every year processions of
the finest young men and maidens are led into his labyrinth that he may
swallow them up, every year the whole of Europe cries out “Away to Crete!
Away to Crete!”.…
Second Postscript
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 _Kreus-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.(13) 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 Handel 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