No More Learning

" musie. "--French, German, and Italian music. (Our most debased periods in
Concerning
perfection
? sense are our most productive, The Slavs P)--The ballet, which the outcome of
excessive study of the history of strange civilisa tions, has become master of opera--Stage music and musicians' music--It an error to suppose that what Wagner composed was a farm: was rather formlessness. The possibilities of dramatic construction have yet to be discovered--Rhythm. " Expression " at all costs. Harlotry in instru mentation. ---All honour to Heinrich Schiitz; all
honour to Mendelssohn: in them we find an
political
element of Goethe, but nowhere else!
find another element of Goethe coming to blossom in Rahel third element in Heinrich Heine. )
836.
Descriptive music leaves reality to work its effects alone. . All these kinds of art are easier, and more easy to imitate; poorly gifted
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people have recourse to them. The appeal to the instincts; suggestive art.
837.
Concerning our modern music--The decay of melody, like the decay of "ideas," and of the freedom of intellectual activity, is a piece of clumsiness and obtuseness, which is developing itself into new feats of daring and even into principles ;--in the end man has only the prin-' ciples of his gifts, or of his lack of gifts.
" Dramatic music "----nonsensel It is simply bad music. . . . "Feeling" and "passion" are merely substitutes when lofty intellectuality and the joy of it (e. g. Voltaire's) can no longer be attained. Expressed technically, " feeling " and " passion " are easier; they presuppose a much poorer kind of artist. The recourse to drama be trays that an artist is much more a master in tricky means than in genuine ones. To-day we have both dramatic painting and dramatic poetry, etc.
838.
What we lack in music is an aesthetic'which would impose laws upon musicians and give them a conscience; and as a result of this we lack a real contest concerning "principles. "---For as musicians we laugh at Herbart's velleities in this department just as heartily as we laugh at
? As a matter of fact, tremendous difliculties present themselves here. We no
Schopenhauer's.
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273
longer know on what basis to found our concepts of what " exemplary," "masterly," " perfect. " With the instincts of old loves and old admiration~ we grope about in realm of values, and we almost believe, " that good which pleases us. " . . am always suspicious when hear
people every where speak innocently of Beethoven as "classic":
what would maintain, and with some severity, that, in other arts, classic the very reverse of Beethoven. But when the complete and glaring dissolution of style, Wagner's so-called dramatic style, taught and honoured as exemplary, as masterly, as progressive, then my impatience exceeds all bounds. Dramatic style in music, as
? understood simply renunciation of all style whatever; the assumption that something else, namely, drama, hundred times more important than music. Wagner can paint; he does not use music for the sake of music, with
he accentuates attitudes; he poet. Finally he made an appeal to beautiful feelings and heaving breasts, just as all other theatrical artists
have done, and with all he converted women and even those whose souls thirst for culture to him. But what do women and the uncultured care about: music? All these people have no conscience for art: none Of them suffer when the first and fundamental virtues of an art are scorned and trodden upon in favour of that which merely secondary (as ancilla dramaturgica). What good can come of all extension in the means of expression, when that which expressed, art itself, has lost all its law and order? The picturesque pomp and power
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Of tones, the symbolism of sound, rhythm, the colour effects Of harmony and discord, the suggestive significance of music, the whole sensuality of this art which Wagner made prevail--it is all this that Wagner derived, developed, and drew out of music. Victor Hugo did something very similar for language: but already people in France are
'asking themselves, in regard to the case of Victor Hugo, whether language was not corrupted by
him; whether reason, intellectuality, and thorough conformity to law in language are not suppressed when the sensuality of expression is elevated to a high place? Is it not a sign of decadence that the poets in France have become plastic artists, and that the musicians of Germany have become actors and culturemongers?
839.
274
? To-day there exists a sort of musical pes simism even among people who are not musi cians. Who has not met and cursed the confounded youthlet who torments his piano until it shrieks with despair, and who
single handed heaves the slime of the most lugubrious
and drabby harmonies before him? By so doing a man betrays himself as a pessimist. . . . It is open to question, though, whether he also proves himself a musician by this means. I for my part could never be made to believe it. A Wagneritepur sang is unmusical; he submits to the elementary forces of music very much
as a woman submits to the will of the man who hypnotises her--and in order to be able to
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275
do this he must not be made suspicious in rebus musicis et musicantibus by too severe or too delicate conscience. said "very much as "-- but in this respect spoke perhaps more than
Let any one consider the means which Wagner uses by preference, when he wishes to make an effect (means which for the greater
part he first had to invent); they are appallingly similar to the means by which hypnotist exercises his power (the choice of his movements, the general colour of his orchestration; the excruciating evasion of consistency, and fairness and squareness, in rhythm; the creepiness, the soothing touch, the mystery, the hysteria of his "unending melody"). And the condition to which the overture to Lohengrin, for instance, reduces the men, and still more the women, in the audience, so essentially different from the somnambulistic trance? On one occasion after the overture in question had been played, heard an Italian lady say, with her eyes half closed,
way in which female Wagnerites are adepts:
"
Religion in music--What large amount of satisfaction all religious needs get out of Wag nerian music, though this never acknowledged or even understood! How much prayer, virtue, unction, "virginity," "salvation," speaks through this music! Oh what capital this cunning
* " How the music makes one sleep ! "--TR.
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saint, who leads and seduces us back to every thing that was once believed in, makes out of the fact that he may dispense with words and concepts! . . . Our intellectual conscience has no need to feel ashamed--it stands apart--if any old instinct puts its trembling lips to the rim of forbid den philtres. . . . This is shrewd and healthy, and, in so far as it betrays a certain shame in regard to
the satisfaction of the religious instinct, it is even a good sign. . . . Cunning Christianity: the type Of the music which came from the "last Wagner. "
841.
? I distinguish between courage before
courage before things, and courage on paper. The latter was the courage of David Strauss, for instance. I distinguish again between the courage before witnesses and the courage without witnesses: the courage of a Christian, or of be lievers in God in general, can never be the cour
without witnesses--but on this score alone Christian courage stands condemned. Finally, I
distinguish between the courage which is tempera mental and the courage which is the fear of fear; a single instance of the latter kind is moral courage. To this list the courage of despair should beadded.
This is the courage which Wagner possessed. His attitude in regard to music was at bottom a desperate one. He lacked two things which go to make up a good musician: nature and nurture, the predisposition for music and the discipline and
schooling which music requires. He had courage: out Of this deficiency he established a principle;
age
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he invented a kind of music for himself. The dramatic music which he invented was the music which he was able to compose,-its limitations are Wagner's limitations.
And he was misunderstood l--Was he really misunderstood? . Such the case with five sixths of the artists of to-day. Wagner their Saviour: five-sixths, moreover, the "lowest pro portion. " In any case where Nature has shown
herself without reserve, and wherever culture an accident, mere attempt, piece of dilettantism, the artist turns instinctively--what do say ? --
mean enthusiastically, to Wagner; as the poet says: " Half drew he him, and half sank he. " '
842.
- " Music" and the grand style. The greatness of an artist not to be measured by the beautiful feelings which he evokes: let this belief be left to the girls. It should be measured according to the extent to which he approaches the grand style, according to the extent to which he capable of
the grand style. This style and great
have this in common--that they scorn to please; that they forget to persuade; that they command:
that they will. To become master of the chaos which in one; to compel one's inner chaos to assume form; to become consistent, simple, un equivocal, mathematical, law--this the great ambition here. By means of one repels; nothing
* This an adapted quotation from Goethe's poem, "The Fisherman. " The translation E. A. Bowring's. -TR.
passion
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so much endears people to such powerful men as this,--a desert seems to lie around them, they impose silence upon all, and awe every one with the greatness Of their sacrilege. . . . All arts know this kind of aspirant to the grand style: why are they absent in music? Never yet has a musician built as that architect did who erected the Palazzo Pitti. . . . This isaproblem. Does music
perhaps belong to that culture in which the reign of powerful men of various types is " already at an end? Is the concept " grand style in fact a con tradiction of the soul of music,--of "the Woman " in our music? . . .
With this I touch upon the cardinal question: how should all our music be classified? The age of classical taste knows nothing that can be com pared with it: it bloomed when the world of the Renaissance reached its evening, when "freedom " had already bidden farewell to both men
their customs--is it characteristic of music to be Counter-Renaissance? Is'music, perchance, the
sister of the baroque style, seeing that in any case they were contemporaries? Is not music, modern music, already decadence? . . .
Ihave put my finger before on this question: whether music is not an example of Counter Renaissance art? whether it is not the next of kin' to the baroque style? whether it has not. grown in Opposition to all classic taste, so that any
aspiration to classicism is forbidden by the very nature of music?
The answer to this most important of all questions of values would not be a very doubtful
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279
one, if people thoroughly understood the fact that music attains to its highest maturity and plenitude as romanticism--likewise as a reactionary move ment against classicism.
Mozart, a delicate and lovable soul, but quite eighteenth century, even in his serious lapses . Beethoven, the first great romanticist according to the French conception of romanticism, just as Wagner is the last great romanticist . . . both Of them are instinctive opponents of classical taste, of severe style--not to speak Of "grand"
in this regard. -
843.
? Romanticism: an ambiguous question, like all modern questions.
The asthetic conditions are twofold :--
The abundant and generous, as opposed to the
' seeking and the desiring.
844.
A romanticist is an artist whose great dis satisfaction with himself makes him productive-- who looks away from himself and his fellows, and sometimes, therefore, looks backwards.
845.
Is art the result of dissatisfaction with reality ? or the expression of gratitude for happiness experienced? In the first case, romanticism; in the second, glorification and dithyramb (in short, apotheosis art): even Raphael belongs to this, except for the fact that he was guilty of the
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duplicity of having defied the appearance of the Christian view of the world. He was thankful for life precisely where it was not exactly Christian.
With a moral interpretation the world is in sufferable; Christianity was the attempt to over come the world with morality: i. e. to deny it. In
praxi such a mad experiment--an imbecile eleva tion of man above the world--could only end in
-_the beglooming, the dwarfing, and the impoverish ment of mankind: the only kind of man who gained anything by who was promoted by was the most mediocre, the most harmless and gregarious type.
Homer as an apotheosis artist; Rubens also. Music has not yet had such an artist.
The idealisation of the great criminal feeling for his greatness) Greek; the deprecia>> tion, the slander, the contempt of the sinner,
Judaeo-Christian.
846.
Romanticism and its opposite. In regard to all aesthetic values now avail myself of this fundamental distinction: in every individual case
ask myself has hunger or has superabundance been creative here? At first another distinction might perhaps seem preferable,--it far more obvious,--eg the distinction which decides whether a desire for stability, for eternity, for Being, or whether desire for destruction, for change, for Becoming, has been the cause of creation. But both kinds of desire, when examined more closely,
to be ambiguous, and really susceptible of
? prove
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mentioned and which
The desire for destruction, for change, for Be
coming, may be the expression of an overflowing power pregnant with promises for the future (my
term for this, as well known,
may, however, also be the hate of the ill-con
*
think rightly preferred.
stituted, of the needy and of the physiologically botched, that destroys, and must destroy, because
such creatures are indignant at, and everything lasting and stable.
annoyed by
The act of immortalising can, on the other hand, be the outcome of gratitude and love: an art which has this origin always an apotheosis art; dithyrambic, as perhaps with Rubens; happy, as perhaps with Hafiz; bright and gracious, and shed ding ray of glory over all things, as in Goethe.
But may also, however, be the outcome of the tyrannical will of the great sufferer who would make the most personal, individual, and narrow trait about him, the actual idiosyncrasy of his pain--in
fact, into binding law and imposition, and who thus wreaks his revenge upon all things by stamp ing, branding, and violating them with the image of his torment. The latter case romantic pessim ism in its highest form, whether this be Schopen hauerian voluntarism or Wagnerian music.
847.
question whether the antithesis, classic and romantic, does not conceal that other antithesis, the active and the reactive.
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848.
In order to be a classic, one must be possessed of all the strong and apparently contradictory gifts and passions: but in such a way that they run in harness together, and culminate simultaneously in elevating a certain species of literature or art or politics to its height and zenith (they must not do this after that elevation has taken place . . They must reflect the complete state (either of people
or of culture), and express its most profound and most secret nature, at time when still stable and not yet discoloured by the imitation of foreign things (or when still dependent . . ); not
reactive but deliberate and progressive spirit, saying Yea in all circumstances, even in its hate.
" And does not the highest personal value belong thereto? " worth considering whether moral prejudices do not perhaps exercise their in fluence here, and whether great moral loftiness
not perhaps a contradiction of the classical? . . Whether the moral monsters must not necessarily be romantic in word and deed? Any such pre ponderance of one virtue over others (as in the case of the moral monster) precisely what with most hostility counteracts the classical power in equilibrium; supposing people manifested this moral loftiness and were classical notwithstanding, we should have to conclude boldly that they were also on the same high level in immorality! this was perhaps the case with Shakespeare (provided that he was really Lord Bacon).
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849.
Concerning the future. Against the romantiasm of great passion. --We must understand how a certain modicum of coldness, lucidity, and hard ness is inseparable from all classical taste: above all consistency, happy intellectuality, " the three unities," concentration, hatred of all feeling, of all sentimentality, of all esprit, hatred of all multi formity, of all uncertainty, evasiveness, and of all nebulosity, as also of all brevity, finicking, pretti ness and good nature. Artistic formula must not be played with: life must be remodelled so that it should be forced to formulate itself accordingly.
It is really an exhilarating spectacle which we have only learned to laugh at quite recently, be cause we have only seen through it quite recently: this spectacle of Herder's, Winckelmann's, Goethe's, and Hegel's contemporaries claiming that they had rediscovered the classical ideal . . . and at the same time, Shakespeare! And this same crew of men had scurvily repudiated all relationship'with the classical school of France! As if the essential
principle could not have been learnt as well here as elsewhere! . . . But what people wanted was " nature," and " naturalness ": Oh, the stupidity of it! It was thought that classicism was a kind of naturalness !
Without either prejudice or indulgence we should try and investigate upon what soil a classical taste can be evolved. The hardening, the simplification, the strengthening, and the bedevilling of man are inseparable from classical taste. Logical and
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A contempt of de tail, of complexity, of obscurity.
The romanticists of Germany do not protest against classicism, but against reason, against illumination, against taste, against the eighteenth century.
The essence Of romantico-Wagnerian music is the opposite of the classical spirit.
The will to unity (because unity tyrannises: eg. the listener and the spectator), but the artist's in ability to tyrannise over himself where it is most needed--that is to say, in regard to the work it self (in regard to knowing what to leave out, what
to shorten, what to clarify, what to simplify). The overwhelming by means of masses (Wagner, Victor Hugo, Zola, Taine).
850.
The Nihilirm of artists--Nature is cruel in her cheerfulness; cynical in her sunrises. We are hostile to emotions. We flee thither where Nature moves our senses and our imagination, where we have nothing to love, where we are not reminded of the moral semblances and delicacies of this northern nature; and the same applies to the arts. We prefer that which no longer reminds us of good and 'evil. Our moral sensibility and tender ness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible
and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and . forces. Life without goodness.
psychological simplification.
? Great well-being arises from Nature's indifference to good and evil.
contemplating NO justice in history, no goodness in Nature.
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{That why the pessimist when he an artist prefers those historical subjects where the absence of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity,
"where perfection actually comes to expression-- and likewise he prefers that in Nature, where her callous evil character not hypocritically concealed, where that character seen in perfection.
The Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and preferring cynical history and cynical Nature.
851.
What tragic P--Again and again have pointed to the great misunderstanding of Aristotle in maintaining that the tragic emotions were the two depressing emotions--fear and pity. Had he been right, tragedy would be an art unfriendly to life: would have been necessary to caution people
against as against something generally harmful and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus of life, the great intoxicant of life, the great will to life, here became tool of decadence, the hand maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to sup pose, as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these emotions we thereby purged people of them, simply an error). Something which habitually excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and dis
courages: and supposing Schopenhauer were right in thinking that tragedy taught resignation
meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and of the will to live), this Would presuppose an art in which art itself was denied. Tragedy would then constitute process of dissolution; the in stinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of
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art. Christianity, Nihilism, tragic art, physiological decadence; these things would then be linked, they would then preponderate together and assist each other onwards--downwards. . . . Tragedy would thus be a symptom of decline.
This theory may be refuted in the most cold blooded way, namely, by measuring the effect of a tragic emotion by means of a dynamometer The result would be a fact which only the bottom less falsity of a doctrinaire could misunderstand:
that tragedy is a tonic. If Schopenhauer refuses to see the truth here, if he regards general depres sion as a tragic condition, if he would have informed the Greeks (who to his disgust were not "re signed ") that they did not firmly possess the highest principles of life: it is only owing to his parti pris, to the need of consistency in his system, to the dishonesty of the doctrinaire--that dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who had arbitrarily and almost violently misunderstood
genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion, beauty, knowledge, and almost everything).
852.
lee tragic artist--Whether, and in regard to what, the judgment " beautiful " is established is a question of an individual's Or of a people's strength The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength
? gaily and courageously meets many an obstacle before which the weakling shudders)--the" feeling of power utters the judgment " beautiful concerning things and conditions which the in stinct of impotence can only value as hateful and
(which
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ugly. The flair which enables us to decide whether the objects we encounter are dangerous, problem atic, or alluring, likewise determines our asthetic Yea. This beautiful," an aflirmation).
From this we see that, generally speaking, preference for questionable and terrible things symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles characteristic of the weak and the delicate. i'The love of tragedy typical of strong ages and characters: its non plus ultra
perhaps the Divina Commedia. It the heroic spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto them selves: they are hard enough to feel pain as pleasure.
On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire to get pleasure from an art which was not designed for them, what interpretation must we suppose they would like to give tragedy in order to make suit their taste? They would interpret their own feel ings of value into it: e. g. the " triumph of the moral order of things," or the teaching of the "uselessness "of existence," or the incitement to "resignation (or also half-medicinal and half moral outpourings, la Aristotle). Finally, the art of terrible natures, in so far as may excite the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and ex hausted as stimulus: this now taking place, for instance, in the case of the admiration meted out to Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being and consciousness of power the extent to which he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable
character of things, and whether he in any need of faith at the end.
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This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the reverse of that religiO-moral pessimism which suffers from the corruption of man and the enigmatic character of existence: the latter in sists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance. Those who sufl'er, doubt, and dis trust themselves,--the sick, in other words,--have
in all ages required the transporting influence of
visions in order to be able to exist at all notion "blessedneSs" arose in this way). A similar case would be that of the artists of decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of form,--in those select cases in which Nature is
perfect, in which she is indifferently great and in diflerently beautiful. (The " love of the beautiful" may thus be something very different from the ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be the expression of impotence in this respect. ) The most convincing artists are those who make harmony ring out of every discord, and who benefit all things by the gift or their power and inner harmony: in every work of art they merely reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences-- their creation is gratitude for their life.
The depth. of the tragic artist consists in the fact that his asthetic instinct surveys the more remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly
at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to ,
the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which more than justifies it.
(the
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8 5 3.
Art in the " Birth of Tragedy. "
I.
ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the types Of pessimism which have ever been known hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap parent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense. . . . A world thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth--that is to say, in order to live.