That one may be driven
by a Wagnerian ballet to desperation—and to
virtue !
by a Wagnerian ballet to desperation—and to
virtue !
Nietzsche - v08 - The Case of Wagner
xxvi (#30) ############################################
## p. xxvii (#31) ###########################################
T H E
CASE OF WAGNER
A MUSICIAN’S PROBLEM
A LETTER FROM TURIN, MAY 1888
“RIDENDo DiCERE severuM . . .
## p. xxviii (#32) ##########################################
## p. xxix (#33) ############################################
PRE FACE
I AM writing this to relieve my mind. It is not
malice alone which makes me praise Bizet at the
expense of Wagner in this essay. Amid a good
deal of jesting I wish to make one point clear
which does not admit of levity. To turn my back
on Wagner was for me a piece of fate; to get to
like anything else whatever afterwards, was for me
a triumph. Nobody, perhaps, had ever been more
dangerously involved in Wagnerism, nobody had
defended himself more obstinately against it,
nobody had ever been so overjoyed at ridding
himself of it. A long history! —Shall I give it a
name P-If I were a moralist, who knows what I
might not call it! Perhaps a piece of self-mastery. —
But the philosopher does not like the moralist,
neither does he like high-falutin' words. . . .
What is the first and last thing that a philosopher T.
demands of himself? To overcome his age in
himself, to become “timeless. ” With what then
does the philosopher have the greatest fight?
With all that in him which makes him the child of
his time. Very well then I am just as much a
child of my age as Wagner—i. e. , I am a decadent.
The only difference is that I recognised the fact,
xxix
## p. xxx (#34) #############################################
xxx PREFACE
that I struggled against it. The philosopher in
me struggled against it.
My greatest preoccupation hitherto has been
the problem of decadence, and I had reasons for
this. “Good and evil” form only a playful sub-
division of this problem. If one has trained one's
eye to detect the symptoms of decline, one also
understands morality, one understands what lies
concealed beneath its holiest names and tables of
values: e. g. , impoverished life, the will to nonentity,
great exhaustion. Morality denies life. . . . In
order to undertake such a mission I was obliged to
exercise self-discipline:–I had to side against all
that was morbid in myself including Wagner,
including Schopenhauer, including the whole of
modern humanity. — A profound estrangement,
coldness and soberness towards all that belongs
to my age, all that was contemporary: and as the
highest wish, Zarathustra's eye, an eye which
surveys the whole phenomenon—mankind—from
an enormous distance,—which looks down upon
it. —For such a goal—what sacrifice would not have
been worth while? What “self-mastery”! What
“self-denial "l
The greatest event of my life took the form of
a recovery. Wagner belongs only to my diseases.
Not that I wish to appear ungrateful to this
disease. If in this essay I support the proposition
that Wagner is harmful, I none the less wish to
## p. xxxi (#35) ############################################
PREFACE xxxi
point out unto whom, in spite of all, he is indispen-
sable—to the philosopher. Anyone else may
perhaps be able to get on without Wagner: but
the philosopher is not free to pass him by. The
philosopher must be the evil conscience of his age,
but to this end he must be possessed of its best
knowledge. And what better guide, or more
thoroughly efficient revealer of the soul, could be
found for the labyrinth of the modern spirit than
Wagner? Through Wagner modernity speaks her
most intimate language: it conceals neither its
good nor its evil; it has thrown off all shame.
And, conversely, one has almost calculated the
whole of the value of modernity once one is clear
concerning what is good and evil in Wagner.
I can perfectly well understand a musician of
to-day who says: “I hate Wagner but I can
endure no other music. ” But I should also
understand a philosopher who said: “Wagner is
modernity in concentrated form. ” There is no
help for it, we must first be Wagnerites. . . .
## p. xxxii (#36) ###########################################
## p. 1 (#37) ###############################################
THE CASE OF WAGNER
I.
YESTERDAY-would you believe it? —I heard Bizet's
masterpiece for the twentieth time. Once more I
attended with the same gentle reverence; once
again I did not run away. This triumph over my
impatience surprises me. How such a work com-
pletes one | Through it one almost becomes a
“masterpiece” oneself—And, as a matter of fact,
each time I heard Carmen it seemed to me that I
was more of a philosopher, a better philosopher
than at other times: I became so forbearing, so
happy, so Indian, so settled. . . . To sit for five
hours: the first step to holiness! —May I be allowed
to say that Bizet's orchestration is the only one
that I can endure now P That other orchestration
which is all the rage at present—the Wagnerian–
is brutal, artificial and “unsophisticated" withal,
hence its appeal to all the three senses of the
modern soul at once. How terribly Wagnerian
orchestration affects me ! I call it the Sirocco. A
disagreeable sweat breaks out all over me. All my
fine weather vanishes.
Bizet's music seems to me perfect. It comes
forward lightly, gracefully, stylishly. It is lovable,
I
## p. 2 (#38) ###############################################
2 THE CASE OF WAGNER
it does not sweat. “All that is good is easy, every-
thing divine runs with light feet”: this is the first
principle of my aesthetics. This music is wicked,
refined, fatalistic: and withal remains popular, it
possesses the refinement of a race, not of an
individual. It is rich. It is definite. It builds,
organises, completes: and in this sense it stands
as a contrast to the polypus in music, to “endless
melody. ” Have more painful, more tragic accents
ever been heard on the stage before? And how
are they obtained? Without grimaces ! Without
counterfeiting of any kind! Free from the lie of
the grand style! —In short: this music assumes
that the listener is intelligent even as a musician,—
thereby it is the opposite of Wagner, who, apart
from everything else, was in any case the most ill-
mannered genius on earth (Wagner takes us as if
. . . , he repeats a thing so often that we become
desperate-that we ultimately believe it).
And once more: I become a better man when
Bizet speaks to me. Also a better musician, a
better listener. Is it in any way possible to listen
better? —I even burrow behind this music with my
ears. I hear its very cause. I seem to assist at its
birth. I tremble before the dangers which this
daring music runs, I am enraptured over those
happy accidents for which even Bizet himself may
not be responsible. —And, strange to say, at bottom
I do not give it a thought, or am not aware how
much thought I really do give it. For quite other
ideas are running through my head the while. . .
Has any one ever observed that music emancipates
the spirit? gives wings to thought? and that the
## p. 3 (#39) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 3
more one becomes a musician the more one is also
a philosopher? The grey sky of abstraction seems
thrilled by flashes of lightning; the light is strong
enough to reveal all the details of things; to
enable one to grapple with problems; and the
world is surveyed as if from a mountain top. –
With this I have defined philosophical pathos. -
And unexpectedly answers drop into my lap, a small
hailstorm of ice and wisdom, of problems solved.
Where am I? Bizet makes me productive. Every-
thing that is good makes me productive. I have
gratitude for nothing else, nor have I any other
touchstone for testing what is good.
2.
Bizet's work also saves; Wagner is not the only
“Saviour. ” With it one bids farewell to the damp
north and to all the fog of the Wagnerian ideal.
Even the action in itself delivers us from these
things. From Merimée it has this logic even in
passion, from him it has the direct line, inexorable
necessity; but what it has above all else is that
which belongs to sub-tropical zones—that dryness
of atmosphere, that limpidegga of the air. Here in
every respect the climate is altered. Here another
kind of sensuality, another kind of sensitiveness
and another kind of cheerfulness make their appeal.
This music is gay, but not in a French or German
way. Its gaiety is African; fate hangs over it, its
happiness is short, sudden, without reprieve. I
envy Bizet for having had the courage of this
sensitiveness, which hitherto in the cultured music
9.
## p. 4 (#40) ###############################################
4 THE CASE OF WAGNER
of Europe has found no means of expression,-of
this southern, tawny, Sunburnt sensitiveness. . . .
What a joy the golden afternoon of its happiness is
to us! When we look out, with this music in our
minds, we wonder whether we have ever seen the
sea so calm. And how soothing is this Moorish
dancing ! How, for once, even our insatiability
gets sated by its lascivious melancholy l—And
finally love, love translated back into Nature /
Not the love of a “cultured girl! ”—no Senta-
sentimentality. ” But love as fate, as a fatality,
cynical, innocent, cruel,-and precisely in this way
Mature / The love whose means is war, whose
very essence is the mortal hatred between the
sexes! —I know no case in which the tragic irony,
which constitutes the kernel of love, is expressed
with such severity, or in so terrible a formula, as
in the last cry of Don José with which the work
ends :
“Yes, it is I who have killed her,
I—my adored Carmen "
—Such a conception of love (the only one worthy
of a philosopher) is rare: it distinguishes one
work of art from among a thousand others. For,
as a rule, artists are no better than the rest of the
world, they are even worse—they misunderstand
love. Even Wagner misunderstood it. They imagine
that they are selfless in it because they appear
to be seeking the advantage of another creature
often to their own disadvantage. But in return
they want to possess the other creature. . . . Even
* Senta is the heroine in the “Flying Dutchman. ”—Tr.
## p. 5 (#41) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 5
God is no exception to this rule, he is very far from
thinking “What does it matter to thee whether I
love thee or not? ”—He becomes terrible if he is
not loved in return. “L’amour—and with this
principle one carries one's point against Gods and
men—est de tous les sentiments le plus égoiste, et
par consequent, lorsqu'il est blessé, le moins géné-
reur” (B. Constant).
3.
Perhaps you are beginning to perceive how very
much this music improves me? —Il faut méditer-
raniser la musique: and I have my reasons for this
principle (“Beyond Good and Evil,” pp. 216 et seq. ).
The return to Nature, health, good spirits, youth,
virtue /–And yet I was one of the most corrupted
Wagnerites. . . . I was able to take Wagner
seriously. Oh, this old magician what tricks
has he not played upon us! The first thing his
art places in our hands is a magnifying glass: we
look through it, and we no longer trust our own
eyes. —Everything grows bigger, even Wagner grows
bigger. . . . What a clever rattlesnake. Through-
out his life he rattled “resignation,” “loyalty,”
and “purity” about our ears, and he retired from
the corrupt world with a song of praise to chastity
—And we believed it all. . . .
—But you will not listen to me? You prefer
even the problem of Wagner to that of Bizet? But
neither do I underrate it; it has its charm. The
problem of salvation is even a venerable problem.
Wagner pondered over nothing so deeply as over
salvation: his opera is the opera of salvation.
J-
## p. 6 (#42) ###############################################
6 THE CASE OF WAGNER
Someone always wants to be saved in his operas,
now it is a youth ; anon it is a maid, this is his
problem. —And how lavishly he varies his leitmotif/
What rare and melancholy modulations ! If it were
not for Wagner, who would teach us that innocence
has a preference for saving interesting sinners?
(the case in “Tannhäuser”). Or that even the eternal
Jew gets saved and settled down when he marries?
(the case in the “Flying Dutchman"). Or that
corrupted old females prefer to be saved by chaste
young men? (the case of Kundry). Or that young
hysterics like to be saved by their doctor? (the
case in “Lohengrin. ”). Or that beautiful girls most
love to be saved by a knight who also happens to
be a Wagnerite P (the case in the “Mastersingers”).
Or that even married women also like to be saved
by a knight? (the case of Isolde). Or that the
venerable Almighty, after having compromised
himself morally in all manner of ways, is at last
delivered by a free spirit and an immoralist? (the
case in the “Ring”). Admire, more especially this
last piece of wisdom Do you understand it?
I—take good care not to understand it. . . . That
it is possible to draw yet other lessons from the
works above mentioned,—I am much more ready
to prove than to dispute.
That one may be driven
by a Wagnerian ballet to desperation—and to
virtue ! (once again the case in “Tannhäuser”).
That not going to bed at the right time may be
followed by the worst consequences (once again
the case of “Lohengrin"). -That one can never be
too sure of the spouse one actually marries (for the
third time, the case of “Lohengrin"). “Tristan and
## p. 7 (#43) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 7
Isolde” glorifies the perfect husband who, in a
certain case, can ask only one question: “But why
have ye not told me this before? Nothing could L
be simpler than that l” Reply: -
“That I cannot tell thee.
And what thou askest,
. *
*
That wilt thou never learn. ” cº
f -
º, tº
“Lohengrin. ” contains a solemn ban upon all in- ". *-
vestigation and questioning. In this way Wagner t
stood for the Christian concept, “Thou must and , º
shalt believe. ” It is a crime against the highest
and the holiest to be scientific. . . . The “Flying
Dutchman” preaches the sublime doctrine that .
woman can moor the most erratic soul, or to put " '
it into Wagnerian terms “save" him. Here we -
venture to ask a question. Supposing that this
were actually true, would it therefore be desirable P-
What becomes of the “eternal Jew” whom a . . . * *
woman adores and enchains 2 He simply ceases -
from being eternal; he marries, that is to say, he at . .
concerns us no longer. —Transferred into the realm " . . . *
of reality, the danger for the artist and for the 4°
genius—and these are of course the “eternal Jews” ºr " t
—resides in woman: adoring women are their ruin. . . . ;
Scarcely any one has sufficient character not to be t", .
corrupted—“saved” when he finds himself treated . . .
as a God:—he then immediately condescends to . . .
woman. -Man is a coward in the face of all that is
eternally feminine: and this the girls know. —In
many cases of woman's love, and perhaps precisely . . . . .
in the most famous ones, the love is no more than * * *
a refined form of parasitism, a making one's nest in
## p. 8 (#44) ###############################################
8 THE CASE OF WAGNER
another's soul and sometimes even in another's
flesh—Ah! and how constantly at the cost of the
host
We know the fate of Goethe in old-maidish
moralin-corroded Germany. He was always offen-
sive to Germans, he found honest admirers only
among Jewesses. Schiller, “noble” Schiller, who
cried flowery words into their ears, he was a man
after their own heart. What did they reproach
Goethe with ? —with the Mount of Venus, and with
having composed certain Venetian epigrams. Even
Klopstock preached him a moral sermon; there
was a time when Herder was fond of using the
word “Priapus” when he spoke of Goethe. Even
“Wilhelm Meister” seemed to be only a symptom
of decline, of a moral “going to the dogs. ” The
“Menagerie of tame cattle,” the worthlessness of
the hero in this book, revolted Niebuhr, who finally
bursts out in a plaint which Biterolf” might well
have sung: “nothing so easily makes a painful
impression as when a great mind despoils itself of its
wings and strives for virtuosity in something greatly
inferior, while it renounces more lofty aims. ” But
the most indignant of all was the cultured woman:
all smaller courts in Germany, every kind of “Puri-
tanism” made the sign of the cross at the sight of
Goethe, at the thought of the “unclean spirit” in
Goethe. —This history was what Wagner set to
music. He saves Goethe, that goes without
saying; but he does so in such a clever way that
he also takes the side of the cultured woman.
* A character in “Tannhäuser. ”—Tr.
## p. 9 (#45) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 9
Goethe gets saved: a prayer saves him, a cultured
woman draws him out of the mire.
—As to what Goethe would have thought of
Wagner? —Goethe once set himself the question,
“what danger hangs over all romanticists: the fate
of romanticists? ” His answer was: “To choke
over the rumination of moral and religious ab-
surdities. ” In short: Parsifal . . . The philosopher
writes thereto an epilogue. Holiness—the only
remaining higher value still seen by the mob or by
woman, the horizon of the ideal for all those who
are naturally short-sighted. To philosophers, how-
ever, this horizon, like every other, is a mere
misunderstanding, a sort of slamming of the door
in the face of the real beginning of their world,—
their danger, their ideal, their desideratum. . . . In
more polite language: La philosophie ne suffit pas au
grand nombre. Il lui faut la sainteté. . . .
4.
I shall once more relate the history of the
“Ring. ” This is its proper place. It is also the
history of a salvation: except that in this case
it is Wagner himself who is saved. —Half his life-
time Wagner believed in the Revolution as only a
Frenchman could have believed in it. He sought
it in the runic inscriptions of myths, he thought he
had found a typical revolutionary in Siegfried. —
“Whence arises all the evil in this world? ”
Wagner asked himself. From “old contracts”:
he replied, as all revolutionary ideologists have
done. In plain English: from customs, laws,
## p. 10 (#46) ##############################################
IO THE CASE OF WAGNER
morals, institutions, from all those things upon
which the ancient world and ancient society rests.
“How can one get rid of the evil in this world P
How can one get rid of ancient society P” Only
by declaring war against “contracts” (traditions,
morality). This Siegfried does. He starts early
at the game, very early: his origin itself is already
a declaration of war against morality—he is the
result of adultery, of incest. . . . Not the saga,
but Wagner himself is the inventor of this radical
feature; in this matter he corrected the saga. .
Siegfried continues as he began : he follows only
his first impulse, he flings all tradition, all respect,
all fear to the winds. Whatever displeases him he
strikes down. He tilts irreverently at old god-
heads. His principal undertaking, however, is to
emancipate woman,—“to deliver Brunnhilda. ” .
Siegfried and Brunnhilda; the sacrament of free
love; the dawn of the golden age; the twilight of
the Gods of old morality—evil is got rid of . . .
For a long while Wagner's ship sailed happily
along this course. There can be no doubt that
along it Wagner sought his highest goal. —What
happened? A misfortune. The ship dashed on
to a reef; Wagner had run aground. The reef was
Schopenhauer's philosophy; Wagner had stuck
fast on a contrary view of the world. What had
he set to music? Optimism P Wagner was
ashamed. It was moreover an optimism for which
Schopenhauer had devised an evil expression,--
unscrupulous optimism. He was more than ever
ashamed. He reflected for some time; his position
seemed desperate. . . . At last a path of escape
## p. 11 (#47) ##############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM II
seemed gradually to open before him : what if the
reef on which he had been wrecked could be
interpreted as a goal, as the ulterior motive, as the
actual purpose of his journey? To be wrecked
here, this was also a goal. Bene navigavi cum
naufragium feci . . . and he translated the “Ring”
into Schopenhauerian language. Everything goes
wrong, everything goes to wrack and ruin, the new
world is just as bad as the old one:—Nonentity,
the Indian Circe beckons. . . . Brunnhilda, who
according to the old plan had to retire with a song
in honour of free love, consoling the world with the
hope of a socialistic Utopia in which “all will be
well”; now gets something else to do. She must
first study Schopenhauer. She must first versify
the fourth book of “The World as Will and Idea. ”
Wagner was saved. . . . Joking apart, this was a
salvation. The service which Wagner owes to
Schopenhauer is incalculable. It was the philo-
sopher of decadence who allowed the artist of decad-
ence to find himself—
5.
The artist of decadence. That is the word. And
here I begin to be serious. I could not think of
looking on approvingly while this décadent spoils
our health—and music into the bargain. Is Wagner
a man at all? Is he not rather a disease ? Every-
thing he touches he contaminates. He has made
music sick.
A typical décadent who thinks himself necessary
with his corrupted taste, who arrogates to himself
f º -
\; - ºver
## p. 12 (#48) ##############################################
I2 THE CASE OF WAGNER
|
U.
a higher taste, who tries to establish his depravity
as a law, as progress, as a fulfilment.
And no one guards against it. His powers of
seduction attain monstrous proportions, holy in-
cense hangs around him, the misunderstanding
concerning him is called the Gospel,-and he has
certainly not converted only the poor in spirit to
his cause !
I should like to open the window a little. Airl
More air –
The fact that people in Germany deceive them-
selves concerning Wagner does not surprise me.
The reverse would surprise me. The Germans
have modelled a Wagner for themselves, whom
they can honour: never yet have they been psy-
chologists; they are thankful that they misunder-
stand. But that people should also deceive them-
selves concerning Wagner in Paris | Where people
are scarcely anything else than psychologists. And
in Saint Petersburg . Where things are divined,
which even Paris has no idea of. How intimately
related must Wagner be to the entire decadence
of Europe for her not to have felt that he was
decadent! He belongs to it: he is its protagonist,
its greatest name. . . . We bring honour on our-
selves by elevating him to the clouds. -For the
mere fact that no one guards against him is in
itself already a sign of decadence. Instinct is
weakened, what ought to be eschewed now attracts.
People actually kiss that which plunges them more
quickly into the abyss. -Is there any need for an
example? One has only to think of the régime
which anaemic, or gouty, or diabetic people pre-
## p. 13 (#49) ##############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM I3
scribe for themselves. The definition of a vege-
tarian: a creature who has need of a corroborating
diet. To recognise what is harmful as harmful, to
be able to deny oneself what is harmful, is a sign
of youth, of vitality. That which is harmful lures
the exhausted : cabbage lures the vegetarian.
Illness itself can be a stimulus to life: but one
must be healthy enough for such a stimulus ! —
Wagner increases exhaustion: therefore he attracts
the weak and exhausted to him. Oh, the rattle-
snake joy of the old Master precisely because he
always saw “the little children” coming unto
him
I place this point of view first and foremost:
Wagner's art is diseased. The problems he sets
on the stage are all concerned with hysteria; the
convulsiveness of his emotions, his over-excited
sensitiveness, his taste which demands ever sharper
condimentation, his erraticness which he togged
out to look like principles, and, last but not least,
his choice of heroes and heroines, considered as
physiological types (—a hospital ward —): the
whole represents a morbid picture; of this there
can be no doubt. Wagner est une névrose. Maybe,
that nothing is better known to-day, or in any case
the subject of greater study, than the Protean
character of degeneration which has disguised itself
here, both as an art and as an artist. In Wagner
our medical men and physiologists have a most
interesting case, or at least a very complete one.
Owing to the very fact that nothing is more
modern than this thorough morbidness, this dilatori-
ness and excessive irritability of the nervous
## p. 14 (#50) ##############################################
I4 THE CASE OF WAGNER
machinery, Wagner is the modern artist par
excellence, the Cagliostro of modernity. All that
the world most needs to-day, is combined in the
most seductive manner in his art, the three great
stimulants of exhausted people: brutality, artift-
ciality and innocence (idiocy).
Wagner is a great corrupter of music. With it,
he found the means of stimulating tired nerves,
and in this way he made music ill. In the art of
spurring exhausted creatures back into activity,
and of recalling half-corpses to life, the inventive-
ness he shows is of no mean order. He is the
master of hypnotic trickery, and he fells the
strongest like bullocks. Wagner's success—his
success with nerves, and therefore with women—
converted the whole world of ambitious musicians
into disciples of his secret art. And not only the
ambitious, but also the shrewd. . . . Only with
morbid music can money be made to-day; our big
theatres live on Wagner.
6.
—Once more I will venture to indulge in a little
levity. Let us suppose that Wagner's success could
become flesh and blood and assume a human form;
that, dressed up as a good-natured musical savant,
it could move among budding artists.
## p. xxvii (#31) ###########################################
T H E
CASE OF WAGNER
A MUSICIAN’S PROBLEM
A LETTER FROM TURIN, MAY 1888
“RIDENDo DiCERE severuM . . .
## p. xxviii (#32) ##########################################
## p. xxix (#33) ############################################
PRE FACE
I AM writing this to relieve my mind. It is not
malice alone which makes me praise Bizet at the
expense of Wagner in this essay. Amid a good
deal of jesting I wish to make one point clear
which does not admit of levity. To turn my back
on Wagner was for me a piece of fate; to get to
like anything else whatever afterwards, was for me
a triumph. Nobody, perhaps, had ever been more
dangerously involved in Wagnerism, nobody had
defended himself more obstinately against it,
nobody had ever been so overjoyed at ridding
himself of it. A long history! —Shall I give it a
name P-If I were a moralist, who knows what I
might not call it! Perhaps a piece of self-mastery. —
But the philosopher does not like the moralist,
neither does he like high-falutin' words. . . .
What is the first and last thing that a philosopher T.
demands of himself? To overcome his age in
himself, to become “timeless. ” With what then
does the philosopher have the greatest fight?
With all that in him which makes him the child of
his time. Very well then I am just as much a
child of my age as Wagner—i. e. , I am a decadent.
The only difference is that I recognised the fact,
xxix
## p. xxx (#34) #############################################
xxx PREFACE
that I struggled against it. The philosopher in
me struggled against it.
My greatest preoccupation hitherto has been
the problem of decadence, and I had reasons for
this. “Good and evil” form only a playful sub-
division of this problem. If one has trained one's
eye to detect the symptoms of decline, one also
understands morality, one understands what lies
concealed beneath its holiest names and tables of
values: e. g. , impoverished life, the will to nonentity,
great exhaustion. Morality denies life. . . . In
order to undertake such a mission I was obliged to
exercise self-discipline:–I had to side against all
that was morbid in myself including Wagner,
including Schopenhauer, including the whole of
modern humanity. — A profound estrangement,
coldness and soberness towards all that belongs
to my age, all that was contemporary: and as the
highest wish, Zarathustra's eye, an eye which
surveys the whole phenomenon—mankind—from
an enormous distance,—which looks down upon
it. —For such a goal—what sacrifice would not have
been worth while? What “self-mastery”! What
“self-denial "l
The greatest event of my life took the form of
a recovery. Wagner belongs only to my diseases.
Not that I wish to appear ungrateful to this
disease. If in this essay I support the proposition
that Wagner is harmful, I none the less wish to
## p. xxxi (#35) ############################################
PREFACE xxxi
point out unto whom, in spite of all, he is indispen-
sable—to the philosopher. Anyone else may
perhaps be able to get on without Wagner: but
the philosopher is not free to pass him by. The
philosopher must be the evil conscience of his age,
but to this end he must be possessed of its best
knowledge. And what better guide, or more
thoroughly efficient revealer of the soul, could be
found for the labyrinth of the modern spirit than
Wagner? Through Wagner modernity speaks her
most intimate language: it conceals neither its
good nor its evil; it has thrown off all shame.
And, conversely, one has almost calculated the
whole of the value of modernity once one is clear
concerning what is good and evil in Wagner.
I can perfectly well understand a musician of
to-day who says: “I hate Wagner but I can
endure no other music. ” But I should also
understand a philosopher who said: “Wagner is
modernity in concentrated form. ” There is no
help for it, we must first be Wagnerites. . . .
## p. xxxii (#36) ###########################################
## p. 1 (#37) ###############################################
THE CASE OF WAGNER
I.
YESTERDAY-would you believe it? —I heard Bizet's
masterpiece for the twentieth time. Once more I
attended with the same gentle reverence; once
again I did not run away. This triumph over my
impatience surprises me. How such a work com-
pletes one | Through it one almost becomes a
“masterpiece” oneself—And, as a matter of fact,
each time I heard Carmen it seemed to me that I
was more of a philosopher, a better philosopher
than at other times: I became so forbearing, so
happy, so Indian, so settled. . . . To sit for five
hours: the first step to holiness! —May I be allowed
to say that Bizet's orchestration is the only one
that I can endure now P That other orchestration
which is all the rage at present—the Wagnerian–
is brutal, artificial and “unsophisticated" withal,
hence its appeal to all the three senses of the
modern soul at once. How terribly Wagnerian
orchestration affects me ! I call it the Sirocco. A
disagreeable sweat breaks out all over me. All my
fine weather vanishes.
Bizet's music seems to me perfect. It comes
forward lightly, gracefully, stylishly. It is lovable,
I
## p. 2 (#38) ###############################################
2 THE CASE OF WAGNER
it does not sweat. “All that is good is easy, every-
thing divine runs with light feet”: this is the first
principle of my aesthetics. This music is wicked,
refined, fatalistic: and withal remains popular, it
possesses the refinement of a race, not of an
individual. It is rich. It is definite. It builds,
organises, completes: and in this sense it stands
as a contrast to the polypus in music, to “endless
melody. ” Have more painful, more tragic accents
ever been heard on the stage before? And how
are they obtained? Without grimaces ! Without
counterfeiting of any kind! Free from the lie of
the grand style! —In short: this music assumes
that the listener is intelligent even as a musician,—
thereby it is the opposite of Wagner, who, apart
from everything else, was in any case the most ill-
mannered genius on earth (Wagner takes us as if
. . . , he repeats a thing so often that we become
desperate-that we ultimately believe it).
And once more: I become a better man when
Bizet speaks to me. Also a better musician, a
better listener. Is it in any way possible to listen
better? —I even burrow behind this music with my
ears. I hear its very cause. I seem to assist at its
birth. I tremble before the dangers which this
daring music runs, I am enraptured over those
happy accidents for which even Bizet himself may
not be responsible. —And, strange to say, at bottom
I do not give it a thought, or am not aware how
much thought I really do give it. For quite other
ideas are running through my head the while. . .
Has any one ever observed that music emancipates
the spirit? gives wings to thought? and that the
## p. 3 (#39) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 3
more one becomes a musician the more one is also
a philosopher? The grey sky of abstraction seems
thrilled by flashes of lightning; the light is strong
enough to reveal all the details of things; to
enable one to grapple with problems; and the
world is surveyed as if from a mountain top. –
With this I have defined philosophical pathos. -
And unexpectedly answers drop into my lap, a small
hailstorm of ice and wisdom, of problems solved.
Where am I? Bizet makes me productive. Every-
thing that is good makes me productive. I have
gratitude for nothing else, nor have I any other
touchstone for testing what is good.
2.
Bizet's work also saves; Wagner is not the only
“Saviour. ” With it one bids farewell to the damp
north and to all the fog of the Wagnerian ideal.
Even the action in itself delivers us from these
things. From Merimée it has this logic even in
passion, from him it has the direct line, inexorable
necessity; but what it has above all else is that
which belongs to sub-tropical zones—that dryness
of atmosphere, that limpidegga of the air. Here in
every respect the climate is altered. Here another
kind of sensuality, another kind of sensitiveness
and another kind of cheerfulness make their appeal.
This music is gay, but not in a French or German
way. Its gaiety is African; fate hangs over it, its
happiness is short, sudden, without reprieve. I
envy Bizet for having had the courage of this
sensitiveness, which hitherto in the cultured music
9.
## p. 4 (#40) ###############################################
4 THE CASE OF WAGNER
of Europe has found no means of expression,-of
this southern, tawny, Sunburnt sensitiveness. . . .
What a joy the golden afternoon of its happiness is
to us! When we look out, with this music in our
minds, we wonder whether we have ever seen the
sea so calm. And how soothing is this Moorish
dancing ! How, for once, even our insatiability
gets sated by its lascivious melancholy l—And
finally love, love translated back into Nature /
Not the love of a “cultured girl! ”—no Senta-
sentimentality. ” But love as fate, as a fatality,
cynical, innocent, cruel,-and precisely in this way
Mature / The love whose means is war, whose
very essence is the mortal hatred between the
sexes! —I know no case in which the tragic irony,
which constitutes the kernel of love, is expressed
with such severity, or in so terrible a formula, as
in the last cry of Don José with which the work
ends :
“Yes, it is I who have killed her,
I—my adored Carmen "
—Such a conception of love (the only one worthy
of a philosopher) is rare: it distinguishes one
work of art from among a thousand others. For,
as a rule, artists are no better than the rest of the
world, they are even worse—they misunderstand
love. Even Wagner misunderstood it. They imagine
that they are selfless in it because they appear
to be seeking the advantage of another creature
often to their own disadvantage. But in return
they want to possess the other creature. . . . Even
* Senta is the heroine in the “Flying Dutchman. ”—Tr.
## p. 5 (#41) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 5
God is no exception to this rule, he is very far from
thinking “What does it matter to thee whether I
love thee or not? ”—He becomes terrible if he is
not loved in return. “L’amour—and with this
principle one carries one's point against Gods and
men—est de tous les sentiments le plus égoiste, et
par consequent, lorsqu'il est blessé, le moins géné-
reur” (B. Constant).
3.
Perhaps you are beginning to perceive how very
much this music improves me? —Il faut méditer-
raniser la musique: and I have my reasons for this
principle (“Beyond Good and Evil,” pp. 216 et seq. ).
The return to Nature, health, good spirits, youth,
virtue /–And yet I was one of the most corrupted
Wagnerites. . . . I was able to take Wagner
seriously. Oh, this old magician what tricks
has he not played upon us! The first thing his
art places in our hands is a magnifying glass: we
look through it, and we no longer trust our own
eyes. —Everything grows bigger, even Wagner grows
bigger. . . . What a clever rattlesnake. Through-
out his life he rattled “resignation,” “loyalty,”
and “purity” about our ears, and he retired from
the corrupt world with a song of praise to chastity
—And we believed it all. . . .
—But you will not listen to me? You prefer
even the problem of Wagner to that of Bizet? But
neither do I underrate it; it has its charm. The
problem of salvation is even a venerable problem.
Wagner pondered over nothing so deeply as over
salvation: his opera is the opera of salvation.
J-
## p. 6 (#42) ###############################################
6 THE CASE OF WAGNER
Someone always wants to be saved in his operas,
now it is a youth ; anon it is a maid, this is his
problem. —And how lavishly he varies his leitmotif/
What rare and melancholy modulations ! If it were
not for Wagner, who would teach us that innocence
has a preference for saving interesting sinners?
(the case in “Tannhäuser”). Or that even the eternal
Jew gets saved and settled down when he marries?
(the case in the “Flying Dutchman"). Or that
corrupted old females prefer to be saved by chaste
young men? (the case of Kundry). Or that young
hysterics like to be saved by their doctor? (the
case in “Lohengrin. ”). Or that beautiful girls most
love to be saved by a knight who also happens to
be a Wagnerite P (the case in the “Mastersingers”).
Or that even married women also like to be saved
by a knight? (the case of Isolde). Or that the
venerable Almighty, after having compromised
himself morally in all manner of ways, is at last
delivered by a free spirit and an immoralist? (the
case in the “Ring”). Admire, more especially this
last piece of wisdom Do you understand it?
I—take good care not to understand it. . . . That
it is possible to draw yet other lessons from the
works above mentioned,—I am much more ready
to prove than to dispute.
That one may be driven
by a Wagnerian ballet to desperation—and to
virtue ! (once again the case in “Tannhäuser”).
That not going to bed at the right time may be
followed by the worst consequences (once again
the case of “Lohengrin"). -That one can never be
too sure of the spouse one actually marries (for the
third time, the case of “Lohengrin"). “Tristan and
## p. 7 (#43) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 7
Isolde” glorifies the perfect husband who, in a
certain case, can ask only one question: “But why
have ye not told me this before? Nothing could L
be simpler than that l” Reply: -
“That I cannot tell thee.
And what thou askest,
. *
*
That wilt thou never learn. ” cº
f -
º, tº
“Lohengrin. ” contains a solemn ban upon all in- ". *-
vestigation and questioning. In this way Wagner t
stood for the Christian concept, “Thou must and , º
shalt believe. ” It is a crime against the highest
and the holiest to be scientific. . . . The “Flying
Dutchman” preaches the sublime doctrine that .
woman can moor the most erratic soul, or to put " '
it into Wagnerian terms “save" him. Here we -
venture to ask a question. Supposing that this
were actually true, would it therefore be desirable P-
What becomes of the “eternal Jew” whom a . . . * *
woman adores and enchains 2 He simply ceases -
from being eternal; he marries, that is to say, he at . .
concerns us no longer. —Transferred into the realm " . . . *
of reality, the danger for the artist and for the 4°
genius—and these are of course the “eternal Jews” ºr " t
—resides in woman: adoring women are their ruin. . . . ;
Scarcely any one has sufficient character not to be t", .
corrupted—“saved” when he finds himself treated . . .
as a God:—he then immediately condescends to . . .
woman. -Man is a coward in the face of all that is
eternally feminine: and this the girls know. —In
many cases of woman's love, and perhaps precisely . . . . .
in the most famous ones, the love is no more than * * *
a refined form of parasitism, a making one's nest in
## p. 8 (#44) ###############################################
8 THE CASE OF WAGNER
another's soul and sometimes even in another's
flesh—Ah! and how constantly at the cost of the
host
We know the fate of Goethe in old-maidish
moralin-corroded Germany. He was always offen-
sive to Germans, he found honest admirers only
among Jewesses. Schiller, “noble” Schiller, who
cried flowery words into their ears, he was a man
after their own heart. What did they reproach
Goethe with ? —with the Mount of Venus, and with
having composed certain Venetian epigrams. Even
Klopstock preached him a moral sermon; there
was a time when Herder was fond of using the
word “Priapus” when he spoke of Goethe. Even
“Wilhelm Meister” seemed to be only a symptom
of decline, of a moral “going to the dogs. ” The
“Menagerie of tame cattle,” the worthlessness of
the hero in this book, revolted Niebuhr, who finally
bursts out in a plaint which Biterolf” might well
have sung: “nothing so easily makes a painful
impression as when a great mind despoils itself of its
wings and strives for virtuosity in something greatly
inferior, while it renounces more lofty aims. ” But
the most indignant of all was the cultured woman:
all smaller courts in Germany, every kind of “Puri-
tanism” made the sign of the cross at the sight of
Goethe, at the thought of the “unclean spirit” in
Goethe. —This history was what Wagner set to
music. He saves Goethe, that goes without
saying; but he does so in such a clever way that
he also takes the side of the cultured woman.
* A character in “Tannhäuser. ”—Tr.
## p. 9 (#45) ###############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM 9
Goethe gets saved: a prayer saves him, a cultured
woman draws him out of the mire.
—As to what Goethe would have thought of
Wagner? —Goethe once set himself the question,
“what danger hangs over all romanticists: the fate
of romanticists? ” His answer was: “To choke
over the rumination of moral and religious ab-
surdities. ” In short: Parsifal . . . The philosopher
writes thereto an epilogue. Holiness—the only
remaining higher value still seen by the mob or by
woman, the horizon of the ideal for all those who
are naturally short-sighted. To philosophers, how-
ever, this horizon, like every other, is a mere
misunderstanding, a sort of slamming of the door
in the face of the real beginning of their world,—
their danger, their ideal, their desideratum. . . . In
more polite language: La philosophie ne suffit pas au
grand nombre. Il lui faut la sainteté. . . .
4.
I shall once more relate the history of the
“Ring. ” This is its proper place. It is also the
history of a salvation: except that in this case
it is Wagner himself who is saved. —Half his life-
time Wagner believed in the Revolution as only a
Frenchman could have believed in it. He sought
it in the runic inscriptions of myths, he thought he
had found a typical revolutionary in Siegfried. —
“Whence arises all the evil in this world? ”
Wagner asked himself. From “old contracts”:
he replied, as all revolutionary ideologists have
done. In plain English: from customs, laws,
## p. 10 (#46) ##############################################
IO THE CASE OF WAGNER
morals, institutions, from all those things upon
which the ancient world and ancient society rests.
“How can one get rid of the evil in this world P
How can one get rid of ancient society P” Only
by declaring war against “contracts” (traditions,
morality). This Siegfried does. He starts early
at the game, very early: his origin itself is already
a declaration of war against morality—he is the
result of adultery, of incest. . . . Not the saga,
but Wagner himself is the inventor of this radical
feature; in this matter he corrected the saga. .
Siegfried continues as he began : he follows only
his first impulse, he flings all tradition, all respect,
all fear to the winds. Whatever displeases him he
strikes down. He tilts irreverently at old god-
heads. His principal undertaking, however, is to
emancipate woman,—“to deliver Brunnhilda. ” .
Siegfried and Brunnhilda; the sacrament of free
love; the dawn of the golden age; the twilight of
the Gods of old morality—evil is got rid of . . .
For a long while Wagner's ship sailed happily
along this course. There can be no doubt that
along it Wagner sought his highest goal. —What
happened? A misfortune. The ship dashed on
to a reef; Wagner had run aground. The reef was
Schopenhauer's philosophy; Wagner had stuck
fast on a contrary view of the world. What had
he set to music? Optimism P Wagner was
ashamed. It was moreover an optimism for which
Schopenhauer had devised an evil expression,--
unscrupulous optimism. He was more than ever
ashamed. He reflected for some time; his position
seemed desperate. . . . At last a path of escape
## p. 11 (#47) ##############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM II
seemed gradually to open before him : what if the
reef on which he had been wrecked could be
interpreted as a goal, as the ulterior motive, as the
actual purpose of his journey? To be wrecked
here, this was also a goal. Bene navigavi cum
naufragium feci . . . and he translated the “Ring”
into Schopenhauerian language. Everything goes
wrong, everything goes to wrack and ruin, the new
world is just as bad as the old one:—Nonentity,
the Indian Circe beckons. . . . Brunnhilda, who
according to the old plan had to retire with a song
in honour of free love, consoling the world with the
hope of a socialistic Utopia in which “all will be
well”; now gets something else to do. She must
first study Schopenhauer. She must first versify
the fourth book of “The World as Will and Idea. ”
Wagner was saved. . . . Joking apart, this was a
salvation. The service which Wagner owes to
Schopenhauer is incalculable. It was the philo-
sopher of decadence who allowed the artist of decad-
ence to find himself—
5.
The artist of decadence. That is the word. And
here I begin to be serious. I could not think of
looking on approvingly while this décadent spoils
our health—and music into the bargain. Is Wagner
a man at all? Is he not rather a disease ? Every-
thing he touches he contaminates. He has made
music sick.
A typical décadent who thinks himself necessary
with his corrupted taste, who arrogates to himself
f º -
\; - ºver
## p. 12 (#48) ##############################################
I2 THE CASE OF WAGNER
|
U.
a higher taste, who tries to establish his depravity
as a law, as progress, as a fulfilment.
And no one guards against it. His powers of
seduction attain monstrous proportions, holy in-
cense hangs around him, the misunderstanding
concerning him is called the Gospel,-and he has
certainly not converted only the poor in spirit to
his cause !
I should like to open the window a little. Airl
More air –
The fact that people in Germany deceive them-
selves concerning Wagner does not surprise me.
The reverse would surprise me. The Germans
have modelled a Wagner for themselves, whom
they can honour: never yet have they been psy-
chologists; they are thankful that they misunder-
stand. But that people should also deceive them-
selves concerning Wagner in Paris | Where people
are scarcely anything else than psychologists. And
in Saint Petersburg . Where things are divined,
which even Paris has no idea of. How intimately
related must Wagner be to the entire decadence
of Europe for her not to have felt that he was
decadent! He belongs to it: he is its protagonist,
its greatest name. . . . We bring honour on our-
selves by elevating him to the clouds. -For the
mere fact that no one guards against him is in
itself already a sign of decadence. Instinct is
weakened, what ought to be eschewed now attracts.
People actually kiss that which plunges them more
quickly into the abyss. -Is there any need for an
example? One has only to think of the régime
which anaemic, or gouty, or diabetic people pre-
## p. 13 (#49) ##############################################
A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM I3
scribe for themselves. The definition of a vege-
tarian: a creature who has need of a corroborating
diet. To recognise what is harmful as harmful, to
be able to deny oneself what is harmful, is a sign
of youth, of vitality. That which is harmful lures
the exhausted : cabbage lures the vegetarian.
Illness itself can be a stimulus to life: but one
must be healthy enough for such a stimulus ! —
Wagner increases exhaustion: therefore he attracts
the weak and exhausted to him. Oh, the rattle-
snake joy of the old Master precisely because he
always saw “the little children” coming unto
him
I place this point of view first and foremost:
Wagner's art is diseased. The problems he sets
on the stage are all concerned with hysteria; the
convulsiveness of his emotions, his over-excited
sensitiveness, his taste which demands ever sharper
condimentation, his erraticness which he togged
out to look like principles, and, last but not least,
his choice of heroes and heroines, considered as
physiological types (—a hospital ward —): the
whole represents a morbid picture; of this there
can be no doubt. Wagner est une névrose. Maybe,
that nothing is better known to-day, or in any case
the subject of greater study, than the Protean
character of degeneration which has disguised itself
here, both as an art and as an artist. In Wagner
our medical men and physiologists have a most
interesting case, or at least a very complete one.
Owing to the very fact that nothing is more
modern than this thorough morbidness, this dilatori-
ness and excessive irritability of the nervous
## p. 14 (#50) ##############################################
I4 THE CASE OF WAGNER
machinery, Wagner is the modern artist par
excellence, the Cagliostro of modernity. All that
the world most needs to-day, is combined in the
most seductive manner in his art, the three great
stimulants of exhausted people: brutality, artift-
ciality and innocence (idiocy).
Wagner is a great corrupter of music. With it,
he found the means of stimulating tired nerves,
and in this way he made music ill. In the art of
spurring exhausted creatures back into activity,
and of recalling half-corpses to life, the inventive-
ness he shows is of no mean order. He is the
master of hypnotic trickery, and he fells the
strongest like bullocks. Wagner's success—his
success with nerves, and therefore with women—
converted the whole world of ambitious musicians
into disciples of his secret art. And not only the
ambitious, but also the shrewd. . . . Only with
morbid music can money be made to-day; our big
theatres live on Wagner.
6.
—Once more I will venture to indulge in a little
levity. Let us suppose that Wagner's success could
become flesh and blood and assume a human form;
that, dressed up as a good-natured musical savant,
it could move among budding artists.
