# The Fallibility of Artists



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Here is an important Nietzsche quote I just came across from _Human, All Too Human_ (1878):

"Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration … shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects … All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering."

So stop idolising.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Here is an important Nietzsche quote I just came across from _Human, All Too Human_ (1878):
> 
> "Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration … shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects … All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering."
> 
> So stop idolising.


Nietzsche's words should have the effect of replacing envy with respect. Well, regarding composition anyway.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Polednice said:


> Here is an important Nietzsche quote I just came across from _Human, All Too Human_ (1878):
> 
> "Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration … shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects … All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering."
> 
> So stop idolising.


Makes me think of Handel's behavior when he made the Messiah.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

"Inspiration exists... but has got to find you working."

-Pablo Picasso


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Another quote speaking to this is what Thomas Edison, inventor of electricity, said - "Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration."

I suppose it all varies, the time spent by composers on masterpieces. Schubert was said to have been able to compose a song right after reading a poem handed to him by one of his poet friends. Schoenberg composed_ Erwartung_ in the space of a week or so. Berlioz said he composed most of _La Damnation de Faust_ on board carriages while travelling across Europe on his various conducting tours. Puccini composed his string quartet_ Cristanemi_ through the night when hearing of a dear friend's death, by the morning, I think the day of the funeral, it was fully scored.

There are of course examples of more laborious working methods. Look at Sibelius, working for maybe a decade or more on his 8th symphony, which was finished, sent to the publishers who had engraved the plates ready for printing, then Sibelius withdrew it and destroyed it.

& nothing wrong with going back to revise a work the composer thought could be improved. Many of them did this. It can be done in extreme ways though, Widor and Bruckner did so many versions of the same symphony - eg. there are 13 different ones of Bruckner's 3rd - that it's just ridiculous. Or interesting to hear the different versions, or study or play them, depending on the individual listener, musicologist, musician, etc.

Also things like starting a work then mulling over it and finishing it much later. Brahms started his _Piano Quartet #3 in C minor_ when Schumann was in mental decline and died and came back to it maybe 20 years later, after things like dealing with his grief. Brahms was clearly not a machine or robot churning out works, his life informed how he worked on this piece.

Then the difference, if any, between inspiration and how to work it out in practice on the page. Mozart I think wrote to his father that sometimes one was easier than the other. Sometimes inspiration comes quickly but the working out is slow. Sometimes the reverse. Sometimes the composer himself doesn't know how they wrote a piece, they just write it and it "works." Barber said this of his compositional technique and R. Strauss didn't have a clue how he ended up quoting Beethoven's _Eroica_ at the end of _Metamorphosen_. Sometimes things just happen, and even the creator doesn't know how it happens. That's the magic of art, I suppose.

As for idolising, fetishising, putting on pedestals and canonising composers or other creators, I don't go for that either. I'm more obsessed with the history of music and the lives/biographies of the composers and how these affect the end product - their music which I love hearing! :lol: ...


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Nietzsche's words should have the effect of replacing envy with respect. Well, regarding composition anyway.


Very well put.


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