# Nietzsche Contra Wagner



## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Two of the greatest minds of the nineteenth century go head-to-head.
Personally, I have such deep admiration for both of them. When I am appreciating one, I feel like a traitor to the other! 
I'm going to leave this fairly open-ended, because I'm very interested in anything you have to say regarding the relationship of these two geniuses. However, I'll give a few prompts to hopefully start a discussion:

- Is Nietzsche's characterization of Wagner's philosophy as life-denying correct?
• if it is, is this good or bad?

- Is _Parsifal_ "too Christian"?

- Does _Carmen_ have the warm, human aspect that Nietzsche says? More than Wagner?

- Is it possible to reconcile Wagner and Nietzsche?

- Does one have a greater influence than the other? How about in a particular field?

Or, just any opinion you have about them, please share !


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

I've always been tempted to see Nietzsche's praise of _Carmen_--at Wagner's expense--as tongue-in-cheek. Maybe just wishful thinking on my part: I'd like to credit Nietzsche with *some* discernment!


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

amfortas said:


> I've always been tempted to see Nietzsche's praise of _Carmen_--at Wagner's expense--as tongue-in-cheek. Maybe just wishful thinking on my part: I'd like to credit Nietzsche with *some* discernment!


Perhaps! :lol: That would actually be pretty funny. Especially since Wagner thought so little of French and Italian music.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

ma7730 said:


> Two of the greatest minds of the nineteenth century go head-to-head.
> Personally, I have such deep admiration for both of them.


So do I, especially since I would have never had the intestinal fortitude to get to know the former without inspiration from the latter.



> - Is Nietzsche's characterization of Wagner's philosophy as life-denying correct?
> • if it is, is this good or bad?


Some Schopenhauer-inspired parts of Wagner's philosophy may be described as life-denying indeed. The idea of the lovers who are only able to be united in death in Tristan und Isolde fits this definition. So does the hero of Parsifal who experiences the extreme of compassion with the wounded king as literal physical pain (the German word for compassion, "Mitleid" does really mean something like shared suffering). As to whether this is good or bad: I would probably not use either of the two operas as a personal guide to living my life. But they are sublime and soul-cleansing art without equals.



> - Is _Parsifal_ "too Christian"?


I think it depends on the interpretation. One can view Parsifal as a Christian saint, who struggles against temptation, or as a type of Nietzschean overman, who through enlightenment and self-mastery escapes sexual enslavement.



> - Does Carmen have the warm, human aspect that Nietzsche says? More than Wagner?


Carmen is more down-to-earth, realistic and ordinary. Maybe that is what he meant by "warm human aspect". In any case, Wagner's characters are more sublime, symbolic but more loveable as well.



> - Is it possible to reconcile Wagner and Nietzsche?


I am sure they are having a beer together in Valhalla right now 



> - Does one have a greater influence than the other? How about in a particular field?


The only Nietzsche's influence on music I can think of is inspiring Richard Strauss to his Zarathustra and partly, to the wonderful Alpine Symphony. Maybe others will come up with something else.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> I've always been tempted to see Nietzsche's praise of _Carmen_--at Wagner's expense--as tongue-in-cheek. Maybe just wishful thinking on my part: I'd like to credit Nietzsche with *some* discernment!


As a former worshipper both disillusioned and wounded by his idol and father-figure, Nietzsche had to find ways to declare his independence. Any stick to beat Wagner with looked good to him, and _Carmen_ seemed about as different from _Tristan_ or _Parsifal_ as an opera could be. You're correct: when asked about it later he said that his extravagant praise of Bizet shouldn't be taken too seriously. His final remarks on _Parsifal,_ which I will try to find and quote here, make quite clear where his heart was, his provocative comparisons notwithstanding.


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Thank you so much for your very thoughtful and clever responses. 



SiegendesLicht said:


> The only Nietzsche's influence on music I can think of is inspiring Richard Strauss to his Zarathustra and partly, to the wonderful Alpine Symphony. Maybe others will come up with something else.


I think both Wagner and Nietzsche had immense influence on Strauss. 
For example, the composer's aria from _Ariadne auf Naxos_

(The aria starts at 0:58)





Let us be reconciled!
Now I see everything with different eyes!
The profoundness of existence is immeasurable!
My dear friend,
there are many things in the world
which cannot be expressed in speech.
The poets put down very good words,
and yet, and yet, and yet --!
Courage is in me, friend.
The world is lovely and not frightening to the courageous man.
And what is music, then?
Music is a holy art, to gather
all kinds of courage like cherubim
before a shining throne!
And therefore is music holy among the arts!

In my opinion, one of the best pieces ever. It says so much about the importance of music, art, and life. 
And the way it talks about the world being beautiful to the courageous-that's the kind of sublime life-affirmation that Nietzsche teaches.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Much to my shame, I've never heard Ariadne auf Naxos as yet - but now I definitely will! Those are beautiful words indeed.



> Music is a holy art, to gather
> all kinds of courage like cherubim
> before a shining throne!
> And therefore is music holy among the arts!


I can see in these words a certain affinity to a certain Wagner opera finale


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I have totally forgotten about Gustav Mahler and his quote from Nietzsche ("O Mensch, gib Acht") in his Third symphony.


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I can see in these words a certain affinity to a certain Wagner opera finale


Exactly.  Perhaps this is the way Wagner and Nietzsche can be reconcile-through Strauss!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

_"Even now I am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as Tristan - I have sought in vain, in every art."_ - Nietzsche

I think he has valid criticism. If I recall he extols Mozart and Bizet for not only their humanness but their elegance and restraint, whereas Wagner is all-consuming and emotionally exhausting. After you do crystal meth (I'm told), nothing in life will ever saturate your senses with that sort of pleasure ever again, all of life will be duller and less satisfactory after the experience. I think Wagner is much the same, he has the uncanny ability to build and release tension and drama, taking you to emotional highs and lows at scales few other composers even attempt... for us Wagnerians we are perhaps doomed to find all other music a little grayer and less nourishing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> _"Even now I am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as Tristan - I have sought in vain, in every art."_ - Nietzsche
> 
> I think he has valid criticism. If I recall he extols Mozart and Bizet for not only their humanness but their elegance and restraint, whereas Wagner is all-consuming and emotionally exhausting. After you do crystal meth (I'm told), nothing in life will ever saturate your senses with that sort of pleasure ever again, all of life will be duller and less satisfactory after the experience. I think Wagner is much the same, he has the uncanny ability to build and release tension and drama, taking you to emotional highs and lows at scales few other composers even attempt... for us Wagnerians we are perhaps doomed to find all other music a little grayer and less nourishing.


Nietzsche loved Wagner when he loved him - and also when he hated him.

Of Wagner's unsurpassable intensity there is no doubt, but there is also power in austerity and restraint. Your "grayer" image brings to mind the fact that traditional Chinese painting is in shades of gray, and often I find it beautiful in a peculiar way that all the saturated color of Western painting cannot match. Maybe it's my age, but nowadays it's the softer luminosity of _Parsifal_, more than the intense purple of _Tristan_ or the multicolored _Ring_, that penetrates me most deeply. So Wagner wins with subtlety as well!

Here are Nietzsche's late thoughts - and honest confessions - on _Parsifal:_
_
"Putting aside all irrelevant questions (to what end such music can or should serve?), and speaking from a purely aesthetic point of view, has Wagner ever written anything better? The supreme psychological perception and precision as regards what can be said, expressed, communicated here, the extreme of concision and directness of form, every nuance of feeling conveyed epigrammatically; a clarity of musical description that reminds us of a shield of consummate workmanship; and finally an extraordinary sublimity of feeling, something experienced in the very depths of music, that does Wagner the highest honour; a synthesis of conditions which to many people - even "higher minds" - will seem incompatible, of strict coherence, of "loftiness" in the most startling sense of the word, of a cognisance and a penetration of vision that cuts through the soul as with a knife, of sympathy with what is seen and shown forth. We get something comparable to it in Dante, but nowhere else. Has any painter ever depicted so sorrowful a look of love as Wagner does in the final accents of his Prelude?"_

And:

_"I cannot think of it without feeling violently shaken, so elevated was I by it, so deeply moved. It was as if someone were speaking to me again, after many years, about the problems that disturb me - naturally not supplying the answers I would give, but the Christian answer, which after all has been the answer of stronger souls than the last two centuries of our era have produced. When listening to this music one lays Protestantism aside as a misunderstanding - and also, I will not deny it, other really good music, which I have at other times heard and loved, seems, as against this, a misunderstanding!"_

And on the whole opera:

_"In the art of seduction, Parsifal will always retain its rank - as the stroke of genius in seduction. - I admire this work; I wish I had written it myself; failing that, I understand it. - Wagner never had better inspirations than in the end. Here the cunning in his alliance of beauty and sickness goes so far that, as it were, it casts a shadow over Wagner's earlier art - which now seems too bright, too healthy. Do you understand this? Health, brightness having the effect of a shadow? almost of an objection? - To such an extent have we become pure fools. - Never was there a greater master in dim, hieratic aromas - never was a man equally expert in all small infinities, all that trembles and is effusive, all the feminisms from the idioticon of happiness! - Drink, O my friends, the philtres of this art! Nowhere will you find a more agreeable way of enervating your spirit, of forgetting your manhood under a rosebush. - Ah, this old magician! This Klingsor of all Klingsors! How he thus wages war against us! us, the free spirits! How he indulges every cowardice of the modern soul with the tones of magic maidens! - Never before has there been such a deadly hatred of the search for knowledge! - One has to be a cynic in order not to be seduced here; one has to be able to bite in order not to worship here. Well, then, you old seducer, the cynic warns you - cave canem."_


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Couchie said:


> _"Even now I am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as Tristan - I have sought in vain, in every art."_ - Nietzsche
> 
> I think he has valid criticism. If I recall he extols Mozart and Bizet for not only their humanness but their elegance and restraint, whereas Wagner is all-consuming and emotionally exhausting. After you do crystal meth (I'm told), nothing in life will ever saturate your senses with that sort of pleasure ever again, all of life will be duller and less satisfactory after the experience. I think Wagner is much the same, he has the uncanny ability to build and release tension and drama, taking you to emotional highs and lows at scales few other composers even attempt... for us *Wagnerians* we are perhaps doomed to find all other music a little grayer and less nourishing.


Waz jus thinkin where d Couchie may be?!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Nietzsche loved Wagner when he loved him - and also when he hated him.
> 
> Of Wagner's unsurpassable intensity there is no doubt, but there is also power in austerity and restraint. Your "grayer" image brings to mind the fact that traditional Chinese painting is in shades of gray, and often I find it beautiful in a peculiar way that all the saturated color of Western painting cannot match. Maybe it's my age, but nowadays it's the softer luminosity of _Parsifal_, more than the intense purple of _Tristan_ or the multicolored _Ring_, that penetrates me most deeply. So Wagner wins with subtlety as well!


Parsifal is a bit of a tease, which certainly makes it in a certain way the most seductive of all. This website must be one of the most fascinating on the internet, a seemingly endless network of interlinking pages of commentary and analysis on Parsifal, like a maze without beginning or end. The more you seek to understand it, the more you get lost in it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> Parsifal is a bit of a tease, which certainly makes it in a certain way the most seductive of all. This website must be one of the most fascinating on the internet, a seemingly endless network of interlinking pages of commentary and analysis on Parsifal, like a maze without beginning or end. The more you seek to understand it, the more you get lost in it.


Yes, a wonderful site. I've gotten lost in it many times.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Nietzsche Contra Wagner was written after Nietzsche had a falling out with Wagner. Wagner wrote a letter to Nietzsche's physician saying that Nietzsche should stop ************. Wagner also put the rumor around Bayreuth that Nietzsche had contracted syphilis from an Italian rent boy. So it was no wonder that Nietzsche wrote this tract as a form of revenge.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Loge said:


> Nietzsche Contra Wagner was written after Nietzsche had a falling out with Wagner. Wagner wrote a letter to Nietzsche's physician saying that Nietzsche should stop ************. Wagner also put the rumor around Bayreuth that Nietzsche had contracted syphilis from an Italian rent boy. So it was no wonder that Nietzsche wrote this tract as a form of revenge.


It should be stated that Wagner, who was thirty-one years Nietzsche's senior and a celebrated composer when the latter was just a bright young admirer, was actually concerned about his protege in a somewhat paternal, if misguided, way. In those days it was a common belief that self-pleasuring could cause a variety of health problems, including blindness. Wagner's assumption about Nietzsche's private behavior and his meddling showed lousy judgment but were not ill-intentioned.

Nietzsche had spent a good deal of time living in the Wagner household and owed Wagner a great deal, as he always acknowledged even after the break. As his thinking matured and he found his way in the world, his philosophical differences with Wagner grew, as did his simple need for independence.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> In those days it was a common belief that self-pleasuring could cause a variety of health problems, including blindness.


Could you use a bigger font?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

In the 1983 ten-part series "Wagner" about the life of the composer, there is a scene featuring Wagner and Nietzsche, which for me, is just about the most evocative of the whole film. The two are walking through deep snow somewhere in the mountains. Nietzsche is visibly freezing, but Wagner keeps on walking without noticing. And then he pulls out a manuscript and starts reading from "The Birth of Tragedy", a work Nietzsche had written specifically with Wagner in mind:

_Let no one believe that the German spirit has for ever lost its mythical home when it still understands so plainly the voices of 
the birds which tell of that home. Some day it will find itself awake in all the morning freshness of a deep sleep: then it will slay the dragons, destroy the malignant dwarfs, and waken Brünnhilde, and even Wotan s spear will not stop its course!_

The camera moves back, revealing the grandiose backdrop of the wintry Bavarian Alps, and the two men, small and lost in that realm of cold beauty. One can almost feel the icy wind blowing across the mountaintops. Gives me huge goosebumps every time.


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