FREDERICK R.

LOVE, BROWN UNIVERSITY

NIETZSCHES QUEST FOR A NEW AESTHETIC OF MUSIC:

"DIE ALLERGRÖSSTE SYMPHONIE", «GROSSER STIL",
"MUSIK DES SÜDENS"

By the perverse logic with which he termed Richard Wagner "den

großen Wohltäter meines Lebens" even äs he called to mind the agonies
endured on Wagner's account,1 Friedrich Nietzsche demonstrated his per-
ception of the crucial role played by the composer in his own development
äs a skeptical, anti-romantic critic of his age. In comparison the Separation
from Schopenhauer, lacking the personal dimension, was far less difficult.
Had Nietzsche never been subject to the trauma of cutting himself off
from the Wagnerian anchor of his early maturity it is doubtful that the
introspective self-analysis would have taken place — and certainly not
with comparable productive intensity — that turned him into one of the
revolutionary thinkers of the nineteenth Century. This fact is ultimately
independent of whatev.er view one might have of Wagner and is irrelevant
to the problem of whether to regard Nietzsdie's addictipn to Wagnerian
music äs a temporary aberration or the natural development of an iden-
tif iable predisposition.2
Nietzsche's first productive period saw the adrnirable but not entirely
successful attempt to bring together his current Wagnerian partisanship
and the speculative patterns taken pver from Schopenhauer in a major
original contribution on the genesis of tragedy. Although not free from
gaps, inconsistencies and a rhetorical style which the author himself freely
criticized in later years, Die Geburt der Tragödie was the closest Nietzsche
ever came to a comprehensive, metaphysically grounded aesthetic System.

1
Ecce homo, Warum ich so weise bin, § 5 (KGW VI 3, 288). References to Nietzsche's
works are identified by an abbreviated title and paragraph locator and follow the
text of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGW) or the Naumann/Kröner Großoktav-Aus-
gabe (GA) äs necessary. Letter references are based on the Gesammelte Briefe (GBr).
2
See Jaspersy Nietzsche: Einführung in das Verständnis seines Philosophierens, 3d ed.
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1950), p. 66. For assembled evidenCe supporting the
"aberration" theory see my Young Nietzsche and the Wagnerian Experiencey Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963; Reprint: New York: AMS Press
1966.
 Nietzsche's Qucst for a New Acsthetic of Music 155

It has tended to remain the work most likely to be quoted, paraphrased

and interpreted by those seeking a grasp of Nietzsche's aesthetics.8
During the productive years the excitement about Nietzsche's work
had been focussed ort Die Geburt der Tragödie, whidi initially stirred up
a broader group of readers than any of the later books, no doubt aided
by the pubüc feuding of Erwin Rohde, Wilamowitz-Möllendorff and
Wagner.4 It was the only one whose initial sales were so promising that
the publisher soon went ahead with preparations for a second edition. But
the polemies were soon over and Nietzsdie's Wagnerian readership was
already quite shrunken by the time of Wagner in Bayreuth*
Nietzsche's subsequent withdrawal from the active sphere of Wagnerian
exegetes and apologists appears to have registered so dimly on the public
consciousness6 that the author feit obliged to support Der Fall Wagner in
1888 with a ten year retrospective compilation (Nietzsche contra Wagner)
merely to demonstrate what everyone could have read for himself, had
Nietzsche's books been taken seriously.
When the philosopher again gained some measure of broad recognition
— a process which was beginning about the time of his collapse — his
work, äs Julius Zeitler noted in 1900, had become the intense concern of
the Student of morals and ethics, to the virtual exclusion of the aes-
thetician,7
In the period initiated by Mensddiches, Allzumensthlidhes music, which
had been at the center of Nietzsche's eariy writing, seemed to have become
a peripheral concern* But it had become peripheral only in the sense that,
with Nietzsche's rejection of Schopenhauers metaphysics, there was no
further justification for the central function of music äs a link with the

* Pierre Laserre, Lei idics de Nietzsche $ur la musique (Paris, 1905, 1907, 1919, 1929)
dcspitc several cdirions nevcr went bcyond the Wagnerian phase; Bcnno Filscr, Die
Ättbctik Nietz$Ats in der Geburt der Tragödie^ Diss- Mmiidi 1915; Wilhelm Gollup,
Die Theorie der Kumt in der sogenannten t. Periode Nietzsches, Diss. Frankfurt
1936; Dieter Jähnig, ^Nietzsches Kunstbegriff (erläutert an der 'Geburt der Tra-
gödie*),* Beitrage zur Theorie der Künste im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. by Helmut Koop-
mann and J. A. Schmoll, Vol. 2 (Frankfurt: KJostermann, 1972), pp. 29—68.
4
See Kos. 3, 4, 5, ?, 8 in Richard Krummel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1974. These plus an unpublished articlc donc by Rohde for the Littcra-
rit&ei Zentralblait have been made available again by Karlfricd Gründer, ed., Der
Streit um Nietzscbet "Gehurt der Tragödie* Hildcsheim: Georg Olms, 1969.
* See Montioari's account in KGW IV 4, 55 and Krummcl, pp. 25f 29, 32, 37 f. Of an
optirmuic 1500 copics printcd, only 100 were sold by ac c!o<c of the Bayreuth
Festival in 1S76.
e
See Kniimnclf No. 61. Eduard Kalke, Richard Wagner, teine Anhänger und $eine
Gegner (Prag/Leipzig, 1884), assumed that NicmAe still ttood finnly in the Wagne-
rian camp.
7
Julius Zcitkr, Nietzufref Ätfhetik (Leipzig: Hermann Seemann NaAfolgcr, 1900),
156 Frcdcrick R. Lovc

source of Being. Nietzsche's thinking and rethinking of problems relating

to music and the opera by no means ceased on that account, but merely
cntered a more unstable, openly experimental phase. An undercurrent of
thought devoted to music regularly surfaced thereafter in isolated aper9us
and aphorisms, in seemingly disconnected recollections and opinions of
composers and compositions, and in an array of remarks voicing hopes for
the salvation of music in an obscure but suggestive private Jargon.
It has always been difficult to see here a coherent or even serious
attempt to respond to a real Situation in the history of music: Nietzsche
in effect made it an easy matter for his critics to put down individual re-
marks and thus question his competence in musical judgment.8 Like others
before him, even a systematic analyst of Nietzsdhe's aesthetics äs recent äs
Helge Hultberg found himself unable to deal with a number of Nietzsdie's
comments on music except äs deliberate provocations to his former ad-
mirers.9 Among the published works Der Fall Wagner alone attempts to
bring the problem of music into some relationship with Nietzsche's later
epistemology and ethics, but in a format so abrasive or jocose äs to dis-
courage conventional analysis. If in fact Nietzsche looked for a serious
response to his Statements on Bizet and Wagner in that work he further
confused the Situation (for posterity at least) by impressing on an intimate
who was eager to take such remarks at f ace value that the antithesis of the
two composers was deliberately ironical, and not to be taken seriously.10
Although the accents of Nietzsche's later writings at least suggest some*
kind of "positive" music-aesthetic, it has remained moot whether even a
sympathetic study of the documeiits could result in a useful abstract for-
mulation. Nietzsche's particular ambivalence seems to indicate an unusual

8
Curt von Westernhagen, "Nietzsche u. die deutsche Musik," Bayreuther Blätter, Vol.
59 (1936) pp. 8—18, developed this äs technique of undermining Nietzsdie's criti-
cism of Wagner. Martin Vogel's "Nietzsches Wettkampf mit Wagner," Beiträge zur
Gesdnichte der Musikanschauung im 19. Jahrhundert (Regensburg: Bosse, 1965),
195—224, and his elaborate Apollinisch und Oionysisd): Gescbidate eines genialen^
Irrtums (Regensburg: Bosse, 1966) are further extensions of the technique to demolish
Nietzsche äs a "Musikphilosoph," if not his credibility in toto.
9
Helge Hultberg, Die Kunstauifassung Nietzsches (Bergen: Norwegian Univ. Press,
1964), p. 38.
10
Letter to Carl Fuchs, Dec. 27, 1888 (GBr I, 407). Critics who give undue weight to
a warning issued ,a few days before Nietzsdie's collapse typically overlook the con-
text which generated it: Nietzsche's paranoid concern that his attack on Wagner.
in WA could be exploited by someone with an inadequate grasp of the .overall In-
tention of the work. See the "Zweite Nachschrift" (KGW VI 3, 40—43) and
Nietzsdie's Suggestion to Fuchs in the same letter to follow the model of Gast's
review in the Kunstwart (Vol. 2, No. 4 [Nov. 1888], 52—55), which skirts the
problem of Nietzsdie's ad hominem arguments in favor of the general cultural cri-
tique (See Krummel, No. 85).
 Nietzsche's Quest.for a New Aesthctic of Music 157

degree of fluidity and irresolution in this area. And yet, in view of the
progression that has been registered in other areas of his thought from the
relative negativity of Menschlidies toward more dynamic formulations and
concepts, the füll picture of Nietzsche's work inandates a substantial
attempt to identify the salient and relevant patterns in his thinking about
music — äs the art whidi remained his lifelong concern.
One of the significant factors underlying Nietzsche's hesitation or
even reluctance to come förward openly with his ideas on music after the
break with Wagner was that he had in some sense delegated this activity
to another while he himself concentrated on matters of a more fundamen-
tal nature — art and metaphysics having been consigned to limbo for the
moment.
Nietzsche's involvement in the development of Heinrich Köselitz
(Peter Gast) äs an opera composer and practical theorist of the post-Wag-
nerian music drama is to a considerable extent a reflection of his own
impulse to see a new course set for the genre. The füll account of this in-
volvement deserves more space than is appropriate here,11 but the outlines
can be summarized- At the point in 1880 when Köselitz had reached an
independent crisis in his pursuit of the Wagnerian ideal, Nietzsche found
him receptive to the Suggestion that he abandon his misconceived Wag-
nerian-style music drama Williram und Sigehcr and experiment in the
direction of a modernisation of the opera buffa — with its crisp plot and
musical "nurabers* of finite dimension. The new direction was reinforced
through their joint study of sudi composers of finite melody äs Chopin,
Rossini and Bellini, and by Nietzsche's encounter with Carmen in 188L
The record shows that Nietzsche, despite initial hesitation about the new
music for Scherz, List und Rache, gave Köselitz his massive support in the
reconiposuion of the Goethe text, both in his steady encouragement to
complete the work and in his (vain) efforts to secure it a hearing, and that
he repeated these efforts even more intensively for a second opera in the
buffo manner, for which Nietzsche ultimately suggested the German title:
Der Löwe von Venedig.
Peter Gast (the pseudonym likewise a product of collaboration with
Nietzsdie) had only slightly better success with his recomposition of the
Hbretto made famous by Cimarosa (II matrimonio segreto) — at least du-

11
I have dctailcd thu collaborition tn Nietzithc an4 Peter Gast: A Study in Musical
T*$i* (Dis$. Yalc Univ. 1958, Xerox microfilm ptibl 1971), Chapt, III, . »
l44*—297» A pomon of ihis ntatmal hat appcarcd in rcvtstd form äs *PrcIudc u> a
Desperate Fricn&Wp: Nictudie aod Peter Gatt in Basd,* Nkt2uhe»$t*dien I <1972)f
261— 255,
158 Frcderick R. Love

ring Nietzsche's lucid lifetime. During the next fifty years this work en-
joyed three productions which are on record.12 Unfortunately the opera was
not only "unzeitgemäß" in the commercial sense, but also had serious mu-
sical and technical flaws, of which Nietzsche was by no means unaware.
The philosopher appears to have taken an active role in a revision of the
opera begun in the spring of 1884, a process which was not fully comple-
ted when the composer died in 1918.
Nietzsche's heavy personal involvement and the repeated use of his
name and influence on Gast's behalf is not fully understandable on aesthetic
grounds alone. However a number of items fall into place if we pursue
the working theory that Peter Gast represented his personal Surrogate of
last resort in musical matters and that Nietzsche was directly responsible
for and involved in the fate of Gast's, music to the extent that he ultimately
treated the composer äs an extension of himself ,13
In later years it was not unknown for Nietzsche to complain to his
correspondent Köselitz that he had no "aesthetic" which would justify his
current taste in music;14 one of the hopes he had entertained all along for
his musician friend was that at some point Köselitz would undertake not
only the practical demonstration of the virtues of an un-Wagnerian ap-
proach to the lyric drama but also the drafting of a theoretical manifesto
which would support such a practice. In retrospect it appears that Köselitz
so much more enjoyed arguing the historical or theoretical basis of what
he planned rather than working out the practical details, that he almost
had to be restrained from emulating Wagnerian precedent in the ordering
of theory before practice. But at least Nietzsche found in him a responsive
sounding board for all his concern with musical structure.

/. Dramatic and Musical Structure: Gluck or Piccinni?

One of the most persistent theoretical questions for Nietzsche involved
the problem of musical continuity or self-contained structure. It införmed
an inquiry concerning the common basis of Tristan and the dry-as-dust
fugues of Albrechtsberger äs early äs 1862;15 it was a pefsonally feit
12
Danzig (1891), Chemnitz (1933), and Regensburg (1940).
13
A basis for this hypothesis is suggested in NietzsAe's letter of August 1881 to Gast
(GBr IV, 75), and it has further confirmation in Nietzsche's willingness to allow
Gast's ordiestration of Hymnus an das Leben to appear under Nietzsche's name
alone.
14
See his letter of Nov. 19, 1886 (GBr IV, 269).
15
In notes for an essay "Über das Wesen der Musik" (BAW II, 89, 94, 114, 172).
See Young Nietzsche and the Wagnerian Experience, pp: 15—17. Nietzsche's early
solution, however, involved not formal matters but the reduction of all music to a
symbolism of fundamental motions of the cosmos.
 Nietfcsche's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 159

difficulty in all of bis own longer compositions, and it was the basis, even
during bis nominal Wagnerian phase, of an undercurrent of doubt regard-
ing "dramatic" music primarily dependent on a text for its justification
and correspondingiy careless about the demands of inner musical logic and
structure.
The Sdiopenhauerian solution posed in Geburt der Tragödie — claim-
ing a metaphysical generality reflected in music, for which the drama
provided a concrete but secondary Illustration — was an appealing escape
from the problem whose diarm faded with the metaphysical assumptions
on which it rested.
According to Gast's account of 1908 it was a problem toudied upon
almost immediately in their conversations in Basel,16 but there is no doubt
at all that the historicai model of the contention of the Gluckists and
Piccinnists in pre-revolutionary Paris had become especially meaningful to
both men in their common Opposition to Wagner after 1880.
Before Wagner Gluck had been the only really significant composer
to attempt an operatic reform with reference to an express theory of
musical drama. The earliest operas, experimental works of the Fiorentine
Camerata around 1600, had been more or less "pure" responses to the liter-
ary intellectual's demand for drama underlined by music. It had taken a
composer of genius like Monteverdi to balance the requirements of musical
organization and dramatic expression in an aesthetically satisfactory
manner* Thus Monteverdi's Or/eo, the first recognized operatic master-
piece, was already a retrenchment from the extremes of Peri and Caccini
in that it revived a series of closed musical forms whidi the Camerata had
discarded.17 By the middle of the eighteenth Century the conventional
musical units of the opera seria — by reason of their number, complexity
and rigidity — had virtually obliterated the original justification of the
opera äs drama. In attempting to reverse the course of such a development,
whicii was well suited to the baroque weakness for spectacle, static
posturing and vocal virtuosity, Gluck vigorously invoked the concepts of
Nature and dramatic truth, thus attracting an attentive foliowing among
the more luerate opera gwrs and up-to-date critics. Most opera composers

l§
Gavt's rccoücction of $«di a conversation in bis prcfacc to GBr IV (p. xxi) isf
$ub;ect to vomc doubt, inasmudb a$ the book he cbims to havc been rcading at the
tiinc (Gustave Dcsuoirtcrrcs, Glutk et Pittinm, Paris, 1S72, 1875e) appears to have
beca ncw to him in 18S7 (Die Briefe Peter Gast* an Fr. Mrfzidw·, ei Arthur Mendt
[Munieb: Verlag der Nietattdie-Geieltfdiaft, 1923—24Jf IIt p, 111). Or did he simply
fall to recognixe the book wben he cai»e across a refcreiaee to u?
17
Manfred Bokofzcr, Mufit in tbe Barvqut Era (New York: Nortont J947)f p. 58,
160 Fredcridk R. Lovc

of the day remained but little affected by all this and contmued to write
äs they were wont18 and äs the general opera public persistently demanded
— tunefully, brightly and entertainingly.
Self-seeking promoters and journalists seem to have been largely
responsible for polarizing and exploiting the opinions of the Paris public,
for the competitive position into which Gluck and Niccolo Piccinni were
pushed was actually rather unfair to both. Piccinni's forte was the opera
buffa, Gluck's the "reformed" opera seria. While the latter with its anti-
quated classical themes all but died with Gluck, the buffa was yet to 30
on to its finest development with Cimarosa, Mozart and Rossini. But in
the Paris of 1779 Gluck prevailed over his tuneful competitor with the
work considered by some to be his masterpiece: Iphigenie en Tauride
(libretto adapted from Racine). Ironically, he won probably not because
of his reform theories, but because he was a more skillful composer than
his counterpart and most certainly more ät home with the kind of posturing
demanded by the set classical theme (Piccinni is best known for his comic
opera La Buona Figliuola of 1760, based on Richardson's Pamela). With
the great bulk of Gluck's 107 operas now totally forgotten, one may
legitimately ask to what extent his critical position in the history of opera
was a by-product of Richard Wagner's claim to Gluck äs his Spiritual an-
cestor.19
But whatever the ultimate facts of the matter, the historical model of
the Gluck-Piccinni antithesis provided Nietzsche with a convenient frame-
work for his thoughts once he had seriously begun to question the specific
Wagnerian solution to the problem of proper balance between the demands
of music and the dramia. Indeed, considering the large number of explicit
notes relating to Wagner dating from 1878 and 1879 whidi are not reflect-
ed in the final compilations of Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche and
Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, it appears likely that Nietzsche con-
sciously exploited the historical figure of Gluck in an indirect commentary
on Wagner. "Jetzt nimmt alle Welt als historische Tatsache an," he wrote
in Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, "daß Gluck im Kampfe mit Piccini
[sie] Recht gehabt habe: jedenfalls hat er gesiegt; die Kraft stand auf seiner
Seite." (§ 164; KGW IV 3, 258) The — not coincidentally — adjoimng
aphorism, whidi does not name Wagner either, reads like a sober re-
capitulation of Nietzsche's remarks in Geburt der Tragödie on the dangers
of the Tristan music "ohne alle Beihülfe von Wort und Bild" (§ 21; KGW
III l, 131), now minus its Dionysian rationale: "Für Den, welcher nicht
sieht, was auf der Bühne vorgeht, ist die dramatische Musik ein Unding; so
18
Donald Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Norton, 1947), Vol. l, p. 246.
19
Edward J. Dent, Opera (Cambridge, 1940, 19492; Pelican Edition, 1968), p. 47.
 Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 161

gut der fortlaufende Commentar zu einem verloren gegangenen Texte ein

Unding ist.* (§ 163; KGW IV 3, 257) Niemdie's suspicion of music not
governed by its own internal logic i$ clearly akin to that of the Viennese
critic Hanslick, wich whose work he had been familiär for many years.20
His long visit with Köselitz in Venice a few months after the publica-
tion of Der Wanderer und sein Schatten^ their first personal encounter
since 1878 and according to the records a veritable feast of music and
discussion, directly preceded a major change of course for the composer,
based on the premise that Piccinni may not have been wrong after alL If
there was a possibility of "influence" by Nietzsche, äs seems likely, it lay
in Nietzsche^ recognized power to ask the basic questions, to help Köse-
litz rid himself of overriding prejudices, to clear the way for a different
kind of music and a different kind of opera than the Wagnerian sort which
had hitherto been his ideal. While Nietzsdie's notes of 1878 - 1879 show
his consideration of various remaining possibilities for opera "after Wag-
ner, * the specific solution adopted by "Peter Gast" was more or less im-
plicit in the Singspiel text diosen, with its layout of recitative (or spoken)
dialogue punctuated by various solo and ensemble "numbers."
If Sdjerz, List und Radie was to be the Piccinnist experiment that
resulted from Nietzsche^ encouragement, Köselitz, true to his reflective
nature, still hankered to work up the historical justification for what he
was doing while in the midst of his composition of the Goethe text. "Ich
möchte so gerne den Piccinisten [sie] und Gluddsten bis in die neue Zeit
nachspüren,1* he wrote Nietzsdbe in March, 1881. "Ich denke, daß Rossini
ein Sieg Piccini's war; Beethoven ein Stück Gluck; ebenso Wagner*"21 By
any comparison with his "glückliche Trunkenheitw over progress on Sdwrz,
Ust und Rad>e (GBr IV, 38) Nietzsche was noticeable cool at this point to
Köselitz* music-historical plans. Once he had received word of the com-
pletion of the opera in August, 1881, he clearly feit mudi freer to reaffirm
his credo äs i t affected the composer Peter Gast:
Ihre Aufgabe ist es, in Ihrer Kunst die höheren Stilgesetze wieder offen-
bar zu machen, deren Beseitigung die Sdnv'adie der neueren Künstler
fast zum Princip erhoben hat: Ihre Aufgabe ist es, Ihre Kunst wieder
einmal /err/g zu zeigen! Das fühle ich, wenn idi an Sie denke, und idi
genieße in dieser Aussidit ein Vollendetwerden meiner eignen Natur
wie im Bilde. Diesen Genuß haben Sie mir buher allein gegeben» und
erst seitdem idi iJbre Musik kenne» steht es so zwisdien uns. (GBr IV, 75}
If Nietzsche had good rcason at this point to discourage Köselitz from
getting bogged down in th(H>redcal and historical self-justification — and
re
Yo*n% Nietziac &nd the Wagt&rixn Exptritnct, pp. 32—54 and note p, 88,
21
Dif Briefe Pf/er CAM an Nictztthe, If 175,
162 Frcdcridc R. Lovc

the model of Wagner with his Oper und Drama was for obvious reasons
one he did not wish to see imitated here —, by 1886 he had pretty much
changed his mind on tactics. After four years of almost futile efforts to
gain a hearing for the music of Peter Gast, even the fear of aping Wagner
seemed less important. Thus he began to suggest the urgency of attracting
attention to Gast's operas by publicizing the "reform" theory on whidi they
were based. The composer's temporary position äs a reviewer for the Süd-
deutsche Presse during a stay in Munich in the fall of 1886 may well have
prompted the initial gambit on this theme:
Im Grunde steckt in Freund Köselitz22 — audi — ein guter Sdirift-
steller ... und wenn es Ihnen gelegentlich gefiele, das ästhetisdie Pro-
blem, das zu unsrer Lebensgesdiichte/gehört, als ein Erlebnis darzustel-
len, vielleicht, daß damit erst der Zugang gewonnen wäre zur Musik
des venezianischen Meisters Pietro Gasti: wenigstens für Deutsche, wel-
che sich für einen Künstler ernsthaft nur interessieren, wenn sie den
„Ernst" der Principien bei ihm entdecken. — Dies, wie so Vieles, „ver^
stand* Ridi. Wagner. — (GBr IV, 266)
Nietzsdie's frequent hints and allusions along these lines in his letters
over the next several months reinforce the Impression thät this was no
momentary change of tactics, but a complete and systematic revolution23
in his program of aiding and abetting Köselitz. A significant component of
this turnabout was only indirectly related to the practical qüestion at hand.
Renewed concern over the aesthetic problem of his own musical taste
seems to have been generated through the persistent failure of Peter Gast's
music to gain acceptance. He was close to saying äs mudi in his letter of
November 19:
Diese Tage giengen Sie mir sehr durch den Kopf: ich hätte Sie gerne
da gehabt, um Aesthetica mit Ihnen zu reden. Die Wahrheit ist: mir
fehlt augenblicklich in puncto musicae eine Aesthetik, idi will sagen:
ich habe einen „Geschmack" (z.B. für Pietro Gasti), aber keine Gründe,
keine Logik, keinen Imperativ für diesen Geschmack. Selbst psydxolo-
22
The text of Nietzsdie's letters tp Gast in GBr IV has been emended here to con-
form more closely to the Originals in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, Weimar.
"Peter Gast" and variants therof are clearly the exceptioii in Nietzsdie's usage. It is
the intention here to respect Nietzsche's practice, i.e. to restrict the use of the
pseudonym where possible to designate the composer and the Nietzsche-editor. At
this point I would like to express my sincere appreciätion of the help extended me
by Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Hahn, Director of the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, and
the late Professor Helmut Holtzhauer, former Director of the Nationale For-
schungs- und Gedenkstätten der. klassischen deutschen Literatur in Weimar, who
made it possible on repeated occasions for me to work freely with the Originals of
many documents important to the study of Nietzsche and tnysic.
28
See also his letters of Nov. 19, 1886, Feb. 13 and June 22, 1887 (GBr IV, 270, 280,
306).
 Nietzsche'* Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 163

gisdi nachgerechnet, scheint mir das Problem „warum gefällt mir Ihre
Musik?* einstweilen unlösbar. (GBr IV, 269)
It may be that Nietzsche even hoped that an essay by Köselitz on
basic principles at this point would provoke his own thinking in the direc-
tion of a constructive answer to his personal aesthetic problem. Whatever
the case, by April 1887, äs he considered his annual spring visit to Venice,
he had not moved off dead center with this problem, but had only expan-
ded the scope and urgency of his questioning (see GBr IV, 292 - 3).
Nor did the visit with Köselitz, which was actually postponed until
September, produce any comprehensive new aesthetic formulations. Once
again they returned to contemplate the historical model of the Gluck-
Piccinni strife — Nietzsche in his reading of the letters of the outspoken
Piccinnist Abb6 Galiani (GBr IV, 335) and Köselitz in connection with a
book by the Wagnerian apologist Ludwig NohL24 This time Nietzsche
sought to expand on the antithesis in a slightly different direction. Identi-
fying Gluck's music äs representative of the Gallic spirit (following the lead
of unnamed French critics), he speculated whether the development of
European music could not be seen in terms of a dialectic between Frendi
and Italian procedures and styles. His intent was not to glorify German
music äs a Hegelian "synthesis,* but rather to reduce it to the Status of a
derivative or hybrid form (again with ultimate application to Wagner
intended). He was eager for Köselitz to seek out any extant Piccinni scores
in Venetian ardnves (GBr IV, 337), apparently hoping that something
could be learned of the qualities of this music which would distinguish it
stylistically from the work of the * French* Gludc, thereby adding sub-
stance to Nietzsdie's old thesis that Piccinni had been defeated in a power
play on foreign territory. All this was clearly related to an argument he
had been developing against Wagner for some time:
Die Deutschen als Musiker haben bald nach Frankreich, bald nach Ita-
lien hin gehorch t: einen eigenen deutschen Geschmack in der Musik giebt
es auch heute noch nicht[.] Es scheint mir, daß Wagner noch einmal
den französischen Geschmack zum Übergewidit über den italianisiren-
den gebracht hat d. h* über Mozart, Haydn, Rossini, Bellini, Mendels-
sohn, aber es ist der Geschmack Frankreichs von 1830: die Litteratur
Herr geworden ober die Musik wie über die Malerei: »Programm-
Musik-, das „sujet* voran! (KGW VII 3, 260 f.)**
It scarcely needs to be pomtcd out that this line of analysis ultimately
contributed to Nietzsche** rather diauvinistic attempts, in Der Fall Wagner
54
Die Briefe Peter Gatt*. - „ , 111.
** Montiiuri-Collf <iaic tbe Ms- which contains this scction (W! Ja) from May to
July 1SS5. Tfei* agrtts roughly with tHe ediiori of GA XIV, whcrc tlic
appcars o& p. 142.
164 Frederick R. Love

and extensive notes recently published for the first time (KGW VIII 3,
197 - 202), to put Wagner down äs a species of Frendi Romantic.
As for Köselitz, he had little success in unearthing Piccinni scores in
the library of the Doge's Palace, but his seardi at least stimulated further
speculation on the interaction of the "Gluckist" and "Piccinnist" principles
in the history of the opera. "Es muß herauskommen," he wrote to Nietz-
sche, "daß das piccinistische Princip die Oper erfunden hat und nicht das
gluckistische. Der ital. Sänger will und soll sich als Sänger zeigen, nicht als
eine sich einordnende dramatische Figur/'26 In apparent ignorance of the
theoretical origins of the opera he saw Monteverdi äs a "reformer" of
what he assumed to have been the singer's op^ra: "Schon Monteverde [sie]
hat dramatisdi-veristisdie Anwandlungen, d. h. der vierte Opernkomponist
Italiens ... war kein 'absoluter Musiker', er brachte Anregungen, die nicht
gerade in der Musik liegen, wie Gluck und Wagner/'27 Köselitz went on in
his letter to represent the history of opera äs a continuing tug-of-war
between the true musicians — the "active" composers in his terminology —
and the "reactive" önes — the abolitionists, reformers, and theory-domi-
nated musicians who were temporarily able to divert opera to dramatic
ends. It was patently a theory designed for the self-justification of Peter
Gast, and the matter would not be of further interest here, except that
Nietzsche, apparently forgetful of what he had once written concerning
the opera äs the diild of the theoretical man (GT § 19), tentatively borrow- m
ed Köselitz* terminology äs a possible substitute for the overused classic/
romantic antithesis (GBr IV, 350). The terms "active" and "reactive" also
found their way into his notes, two of whidi subsequently appeared in Der
Wille zur Macht,28 a fact which is not too surprising in view of Peter Gast's
role in that compilation. Köselitz' speculations on the Gluck-Piccinni con-
flict, according to his own report,29 finally took literary form in an essay
completed in 1890, presumably under the pressure of a possible production
of his opera the following year.
26
Die Briefe Peter Gasts..., II, 114.
27
Ibid., II, 115.
28
§ 847: "Ob nicht hinter dem Gegensatz Classisch und Romantisch der Gegensatz
des Aktiven und Reaktiven verborgen liegt?" (GA XVI, 263; KGW VIII 2, 64), and
the editors' footnote to § 881: "Ich unterscheide den großen Stil, ich unterscheide
Aktivität und Reaktivität" (GA XVI, 512; KGW VIII 2, 186). Both were distorted
or taken out of context by the editors of the GA.
29
Unpublished birthday letter to Nietzsche of Oct. 14, 1890. There is no indication
that Köselitz was successful in Publishing the essay, äs wa,s his intention, "bei einer
stark gelesenen Monatsschrift, etwa der 'Deutschen Rundschau'," and I found no sign
(1966) that it had been preserved in the papers of the Peter Gast-Archiv, Annaberg,
when this was transferred to the Goethe- und Schiller Archiv, Weimar.
 Nietzsche's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 165

ILOperaas Sympbony
Nietzsche** hopes for the future of the lyric drama encompassed both
the modest territory of the Piccinnist Peter Gast and areas whidi uitimately
had little to do with Gastfs buffo operas. Much of his thinking in such areas
remained typically experimental and "literary " — in the sense that it seem-
ed to call for structures that were probably beyond any attainable
reality in music-dramatic art, and totally unspecific in regard to methods
of carrying out the general demands, It was an outgrowth of Nietzsche's
long-standing concern with problems of basic musical logic. In the heyday
of his friendship with Wagner he distinguished clearly between "gute Mu-
sik* and "dramatische Musik" and portrayed in an unpublished essay30 the
dilernma of the conscientious composer who tries to combine the two (GA
IX, 228), praising in a related note Wagner's unconscious urge to over-
come the failing of the older opera in "die allergrößte Symphonie"*1
In Richard Wagner in Bayreuth he paid public homage to Wagner's
"übermächtige(n) symphonische(n) Verstand" and the monumental tasks
set for it — without however committing himself on the matter of Wag-
ner's success at the basic musical level (§ 9; KG W IV l, 66). A note written
äs early äs 1871, however, reflects the greater pessimism that Nietzsche
concealed from the public:
Das Orchester ist somit nur eine Verstärkung des mimischen Pathos. Die
Musik selbst, die in das geschaute Schema eingezwängt wird, muß jetzt
ledig aller der strengen Formen sein, das heißt vor allem der streng
symmetrischen Rhythmik, Denn die dramatische Mimik ist etwas viel
zu Bewegliches, Irrationales für alle Formen der absoluten Musik, sie
kann nidht einmal den Takt einhalten, und deshalb hat die Wagner'sche
Musik die allergrößten Teropoversdiiebungen. (GA IX, 257—8)
In 1874, once agaift looking more consciously at the negative side,
Nietzsche made a clear distinction between Wagner's sense for order on
the smallest and the largest scale: "Das Rhythmische und Gesetzmäßige
zeigt sich bei Wagner nur in den Maaßen der größten Dimensionen, im
Einzelnen ist er oft gewaltsam tind unrhythmisdbu* (GA X, 436)
Nietzsche** correspondence with Carl Fuchs in 1877 makes it clcar
that rhythmics for hlm encompassed a ränge including melodic structure
or periodicity äs well äs larger formal units, and that he regrettably lacked
the tedinical cxpertisc and Jargon to deal with such matters adequatcly:
"Idi habe immer gewünscht, es möchte Einer, der es kann, einmal Wagners

* The frasmettt *ül*r Musik un4 Won* dating from carly 1871 (GA IX, 212—229,
csp» the x^ction pp. 224-*229).
tj
See G A IX 253—4 *t*d also 24!; *D«r FomAritt sur Symptome, bei Wagner,*1
 166 Frcderick R. Love

verschiedene Methoden innerhalb seiner Kunst einfach beschreiben, histo-

risch-schlicht sagen, wie er es hier, wie dort macht." (GBr I, 367)
With musical scholarship still in its infancy Nietzsche's tools remained
essentially those of the philologist. However vague he was on the particu-
lars, it was at least clear to him by 1878 that Wagner had replaced the
clear contrastive musical dialectic of a Mozart, Beethoven or even Cho-
pin82 with a kind of rhetoric: the endlessly varied leitmotivic repetitions
without any real "development" in the sense of the Viennese classical com-
posers:
Auch in der Musik giebt es eine Logik und eine Rhetorik als Stilgegen-
sätze. Wagner wird Rhetor, wenn er ein Thema behandelt.
(KGWIV3,355)
Seiner Musik fehlt, was seinen Sdiriften fehlt — Dialectik. Dagegen
Kunst der Amplification sehr gross. (KGWIV 3, 349)
Wagner kann mit seiner Musik nidit erzählen, nidit beweisen, sondern
überfallen, umwerfen, quälen, spannen, entsetzen... (KGW IV 3, 350)
Nadi einem Thema ist Wagner immer in Verlegenheit, wie weiter. Des-
halb lange Vorbereitung — Spannung. Eigene Verschlagenheit, seine
Schwächen als Tugenden umzudeuten. So das Improvisatorisdie.
(KGW IV 3, 350)
One can only speculate how he would have greeted the monumental
studies of Alfred Lorenz,33 which remain the high-water mark in the
attempt to show how Wägner's formal structure encompassed large units
— scenes, acts, dramas, and even multiple dramas. However impressive
Lorenz may be on the subject of large scale form, his attempt to apply the
same analytical principles to the details of Wagner's compositional tedini-
ques has been far from universally convincing. For Theodor Adorno, whose
views on Wagner in some ways appear to be a sophisticated extension of
Nietzsdie's, Lorenz' failure to deal with Wagner's thematic "Kleinarbeit''
ultimately has a sound justification in the facts of Wagner's music:
Dieser Dispens [bei Lorenz] heißt aber nidits anderes, als daß es in der
Kleinform bei Wagner in Wahrheit nidits zu analysieren gibt. Wagner
kennt eigentlich nur Motive und Großformen — keine Themen. Die.
Wiederholung spielt sich als Entwiddung auf, die Versetzung als thema-
tische Arbeit, und umgekehrt wird das lyrisch Unwiederholbare, das
Lied, behandelt, als wäre es Tanz. Während Wagners Musik unablässig
Schein, Erwartung und Anspruch des Neuen erweckt, geschieht in ihr
strengsten Sinnes nidits Neues. Diese Erfahrung ist der Wahrheitskern
des Vorwurfs der Formlosigkeit.34
32
See Charles Rosen, The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1972), Part II, Chapt. 1: The Coherence of the Musical Language.
33
Das Geheimnis der Form bei Riaard Wagner, 4 vols. Berlin: Hesse, 1924-r33.
34
Theodor Adorno, Versuch über Wagner (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1952), p. 48. Adorno
is otherwise rcluetant to accept Nietzsdie's criticism äs valid: "Selbst Nietzsche hat
 Nietzsche's Quest for a New Aeschetic of Music 167

While it has always been a relatively easy matter for Nietzsche's

crmcs to demonstrate inconsistency, unprofessionalism, and unreliability
in his musical-critical judgment and thus to make light of his repeated
private assessment of Wagner's weaknesses, a sympathetic reading of tlie
documents, and particularly of the more experimental notes which he failed
to exploit in his published works, would seem to confirm that many of his
intuitions were fundamentally sound. Ladung the technical competence
to substantiate them in detail, he ultimately chose more dramatic and thus
less articulated concepts with which to attack Wagner in print. Nietzsche's
idea of Symphonie unity in opera appears to derive from his sense of the
classical style with its structures based on distinct contrast of theme and
tonality and from his awareness of the possibility of a "coincidence of
musical and dramatic events" in opera sudi äs Charles Rosen first sees
generally practical in the musical idiom of the late eighteenth Century.85
Nietzsche is not very clear how such dialectical structure could be expanded
to support the unity of whole acts of an opera, but he is ultimately quite
sure diät Wagner had not met the challenge.
Thus the matter was bound to come up again in his dealings with
Köselitz* Neither Scherz, List und Rache nor Der Löwe von Venedig could
be considered symphonic operas. They were basically old fashioned "num-
ber* operas with minor modif ications, and Nietzsdie had no argument with
this äs a starting point. But he knew that Köselitz was already giving some
thought to his next opera when he wrote on January 10, 1883 what is
certainly his most elaborate account of the procedure he envisaged for
the creation of genuine music-drama:
NeuHA unterwegs dadite idi viel an Sie: idi erwog das Problem, wel-
dics 5C/I Wagner da ist, und ungelöst ist: wie ein ganzer Akt Oper
eine symphonisdie Einheit als Organismus bekommen könne. Dabei ge-
rieth idi auf mandicrlei Fragen der Praxis oder der „Praktik"; z. B. der
Musiker mußte einen soldxen Gesamtsatz sdiaffen aus der genauesten
Kcnntniß des dazugehörigen Studcs Drama (Affekte, Wedisel und
Kampf der Affekte) und alles Seenisdbe muß ihm gegenwärtig sein. Aber
nicht das Wort! Der eigentlidie Text mußte erst gedichtet werden, nach-
dem die Musik fertig ist, in einer fortwährenden Anpassung an die
Musik: während bis jetzt das Wort es war, das die Musik mit sidi fort-
schleppte.
Die? Ist der Eine Punkt: den Text nach der Musik zu didbtcn!
Der andere Punkt ist der, daß der Verlauf der Affekte, der gesammtc
Aufbau des Aktes etwas vom Schema des symphonischen Satzes haben
müßte: gewisse Respomionen u. dgL, — daß also der Dichter sofort auf

Wagner noch mit den Ohren dies Biedermeier gehört, als er ihn formlos
(p, 66—T).
85
JUncti, The Clat&al Stylt, p, >09, 312,
168 iTcdenck R. Love

die Aufgabe hin den Akt zu bauen habe, daß er ein symphonisches
Ganze auch ah Musik werden könne*
Kurz, der Musiker muß vorher den Dichter leiten, und nachher, wenn
die Musik fertig ist, erst recht! — (GBr IV, 129—30)
Nietzsche's idea may be seen äs the exaggerated form of a remark on
Symphonie unity in the music-drama from one of Wagners late essays> äs
suggested by Curt Janz,86 but there is no need to trace it to Wagner: it is
the practical application of the basic thesis of Die Geburt der Tragödie
shorn of its metaphysics. Köselitz, who understood Nietzsche's unüsual
elaboration äs a none too subtle hint in the direction of his projected opera
"Nausikaa," was in basic agreement with the familiär principle: "Das Dra-
ma muß vom Musiker aus dem Geiste der M sik geboren werden," but
found legitimate grounds on which to quesiion Nietzsche's procedural
formulation. Like Nietzsche he did not believe that a composer should be
bound, äs Wagner had been in the case of the Ring, by a text made sacro-
sanct through prior publication.37 He would have approved of the kind of
cooperation now thought to have gone on between Mozart and da Ponte
before and during the actual composition of Figaro, Don Giovanni and
Cosi fan tutte, in which the composer systematically pressed the librettist
to adjust the text to his notions of the drama and to his purely musical
requirements.38 Köselitz saw Nietzsche's eagerness to bypass the dramatic
text äs potentially destructiye of the possibility of truly vocal opera: for it
was difficult to see how the composer could invent a vocal line f or music
already symphonically complete without having it deteriorate into the kind
of tuneless vocal declamation for which Wagner had been held accountable.
Nietzsche's pröcedure thtis implied a regression to a phase during whidi
he had really shown little interest in the vocal aspect of opera,39 a
negativity that retreated after 1880 in the face of frequent attendence at
operas by Rossini, Bellini and finally Bizet. Janz goes so far äs to call it the
theory of the amateur composer who has persistent difficulty in bringing
his musical ideas into accord with the text he sets out to compose^40
36
'Ober die Anwendung der Musik auf das Drama," which originally appeared in the
Nov. 1879 Bayreuther Blätter (Curt Paul Janz, Die Briefe Fr. Nietzsches. Basler
Beiträge zur Philosophie und ihrer Gesdiidite, vol. 6 [Basel: Editio Academica, 1972],
p. 131).
37
Die Briefe Peter Gasts..., I, 281.
36
See Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work, transl. by A. Mendel and
N. Broder (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1945; Oxford Univ. Press Paperback,
1968), p. 384, and Charles Rosen, The Classical Style, p. 302, 305.
39
See GA IX, 254—6: "Ich denke, wir müssen den Sänger überhaupt streichen. Denn
der dramatische.Sänger ist ein Unditig. Oder wir müssen ihn ins Orchester nehmen."
To Köselitz in 1880: "Ich habe in meinem Leben noch keine Singstimme gehört,
welche nicht die gute Musik geschändet hätte .. .* (GBr IV, 40).
40
Janz, p. 131. .
 Nietfcjsche's Qucst for a New Aesthetic of Music 169

Without any doubt it was Nietzsche's concept of the Symphonie opera

that was principally rösponsible for his extraordinary interest, less than
two months later, in the composer August Bungert* This experience proved
to be one more in a long series of greater and lesser disillusionments, but it
serves äs one of the clearest demonstrations of Nietfcsche's potential for
allowing his musical judgment to be deflected by personal or theoretical
considerations. The story of Nietzsche's acquaintance with Bungert and his
music is fully documented in the pages of his correspondence with Köselitz,
but the essentials can be summarized here.
During Nietzsdhe's stay in the vicinity of Rapallo Bungert (1845 to
1915) came to call on him one day in early March, 1883. At first the
philosopher was enormously flattered to discover in his visitor an intellec-
tual conversant with his works; however the letters to Köselitz transmit
the Impression of a person who had a great deal to say, mainly about him-
self. A Student of the contrapuntist Friedrich Kiel, a pianist trained by
Chopin's pupil Georges Mathias, an experienced conductor and energetic
advocate of his aims, theories and adiievements, Bungert is now generaily
rccognized äs the show-case example of a composer mfected by a species
of Wagnerian megalomania for which there was small basis in the scope
of his native musical talents. At the time he met Nietzsche he had already
adiieved a degree of success with numerous lieder, some instrumental works
and an opera based on Gil Blas: Die Studenten von Salamanca. Music
history has not been fcind to his subsequent attempt to outdo Wagner with
an operatic tetralogy based on Greek mythological themes. Although Max
Chop, the leading spirit of the one time "Bungert Bund," provided indi-
vidual guides and a complete thematic index to the music of the four dra-
mas of Die homcriscfie Welt, it failed utterly in attracting or holding a
substantiai following, just possibly because the works were very long,
musically uninspired, and written by a composer far more at home in the
world of strophic song. When voices were raised in behalf of a Bungert
^Festspielhaus^ to be located at Bad Godesberg, the caricature of Wagner
rcceived its final brush stroke/1
In Mardi of 1883 Bungert was just putting the fmishing toudhes on
Na&sikaa, the sccond opera of his Homeric cyclc, while occupying a
borrowcd canello in Pono Fino« The coincidence with Köselitz* plans for

*' Tbc four opcras of Die homerische Wtl(; Kirk* (prcmicrc 1898), Nausikaa (1901},
Ody$:e*f Hcimkthf (1896), * < Qdyucut Tod (J903) (Alfred Löewcnberg, Annah
of Ofens, 97—194 , 2»d ed. Gcnrva: Socictai Bibliographie*, 1955). See aUo the
Article *Euoeen* in Musik in Gttdhichtc und <3c%enwart. Donald Grout (Short
Hiscory of Opera), p. 448, commrou briefly on thü *appaUingly unintcrenmg tnusic*
Bungen's tctralogy.
 170 Frederick R. Lovc

a work on the same theme prompted Nietzsche to make further inquiry.

Nietzsche learned that Bungert too had cast off the gods of his youth, in-
cluding Schopenhauer and the "ultra-romantics," and he must have been
one of the rare individuals at that tirne who traveled about with Nietz-
sche's books in his luggage (GBr IV, 140). Nietzsdie's report to Köselitz
on March 16 exudes enthusiasm:
Wenn midi nidit Alles täusdit, so gehört diese neue Bekanntsdiaft zu
den ausgesuditesten, die mir der Zufall schenken konnte. Er ist selb-
ständig; idi fand nichts Krankhaftes bisher an ihm. Er hat Feuer im
Leibe und Muth zu den größten Aufgaben; seine Grundsätze sind
streng und den unsern so verwandt als möglidi. „Die Studenten von
Salamanca" ... sind in einem neuen Stile componirt: lange geschlossene
symphonisdie Formen. Was idi von ihm' hörte, madite mir in hohem
Maße den Eindrudk des Reif gewordenen; er verlangt von einem Stüdke,
daß jede Note zuletzt dran nothwendig sei und nidit durdx eine andre
ersetzt werden könne. (GBr IV, 140)
It is obvious what attracted Nietzsche in Bungert's claims. Further
he was told and he could hear for himself that Bungert's style did not
derive from Wagner. And the flattery of Bungert's interest in Nietzsche
did not hurt the relationship.
Nietzsdie's report was naturally somewhat unsettling for Köselitz,
who knew nothing of Bungert's music — was it -a rare case of Nietzsdie's
tactlessness? — but he was cautious enough regarding Nietzsdie's sudden
enthusiasms to press him to hear more of the music itself. Despite all his
intellectual prejudice in its f avor, Nietzsche subsequently had to admit that
the music did not stir him very mudi. "'Wirkung' seiner Musik auf mich?"
he responded on March 20, "Ach, lieber Freund, ich bin langsam in der
Liebe, im empfinde das Fremde zu lange, wie alle Einsamen thun; aber
ich gebe mir Mühe. Ich sagte ihm neulich, der wahre Künstler sei der, wel-
cher fmit Vernunft rase'; so scheint es mir bei ihm zu stehn und idi habe
meine große Freude dran." (GBr IV, 142)
For the record it should be pointed out that there is an impressive
similarity in Nietzsdie's reaction here to those recorded after his .initial
hearing of the music for Gast's Scherz, List und Rache (GBr IV, 40), and
more recently, the recomposition of // matrimonio segreto (GBr IV, 120 f.),
both of whidi may be diaracterized äs cautious or even cool. In the two
cases involving Gast, the first and perhaps only genuine reaction was soon
overcome in a kind of self-hypnosis. With Bungert's music, however, a
fresh hearing of Carmen on Mardi 21 appears to have brought things back
into reasonable perspective: "Wenn ich nur diesem Herrn Gümbert, Par-
don! Bungert etwas von dieser Musik [Cafmen] beibringen könnte, hinzu
zu seinem Sdiumann-Brahmssdien Sdiwebe-Idealismus, den idi auf die
 Niemche's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 171

Dauer nicht ausholte: es fehlen die Knochen. Ich glaube, wir haben uns be-
reits etwas von einander 'entfernt*." (GBr IV, 144) In a sense Köseiitz
gave the coup de grace to any further illusions Nietzsche harbored about
the composer of long, self-contained Symphonie forms. Samplings of Bun-
gert's lieder which Nietzsche had provided produced a sharp reaction f rom
Venice:
Idi sehe, daß idi von Bungert Nichts lernen kann — und idi hatte
midi so darauf gefreut! * „ . Diese Gesänge mit den vielen Accorden,
den vielen Vorschriften, denen die Musik nidit entspricht, und mit der
Dürftigkeit im Melodisdien — diese Gesänge haben midi wieder zur
Composition der Nausikaa entschlossen gemacht.42

///, Grand Style and d£cadence

The Bungert episode, whose importance äs an index of Nietzsdie's
musical judgment has often been overrated because the context was igno-
red,4S was the last obvious manifestation of Nietzsche's speculation on the
possibility of opera with independent musical integrity — the Symphonie
opera, The documents provide no further elaboration of the idea or even
clear reference to it, Nietzsche may well be said to have given up the
attempt to prescribe $pecific Solutions for the problem of dramatic music
in his own age. Yet his abiding concern for the art to which he was closest
did not abate, äs is clear from his personal need to set the record straight in
the two separate Wagner publications of 1888.
It does not seem entirely unrelated to this development that the
hitherto largely unexploited combination "großer Stil" began to recur with
fair regularity in Nietzsche's notes and letters after the Bungert encounter.
Such a term was so vague and all-encompassing that, applied to music, it
allowed the writer to by-pass the specification of precise music-tedmical
desiderata. Ultimately, äs I hope to demonstrate below, the concept gro-
ßer Sriln became the single cypher for virtually all the unattained and even
unattainable goals tbat Nietzsche had ever conceived for music, a term
implicitly amithetical to the "decadent" condition of contemporary musical
art- As part of the attempt to circumscribe its meaning and understand
its function among the central issues of Nietzsche** thought it is essential
to see how this clichled word^combination adhtieved terminological Status.
44
Großer Stil* or Grand Style, a$ we may call it here, has reccived
sosne attention in the Nietzsche literature, although its incidence in the

* Dit Briefe Peter G**U.. .* I, 296.

*? rcfrcifjins ««^ptien 1% Robert Gotman, Richard Wagner; Tbc Man, Hin Mind, and
His Muüc {New York: Harcoun Bracc Jovanovidi, 196S)t p. 357, wfeo sces tbc
ttsiasm for Gast aod Bungen äs no moru foolith tban Wagoe/f mbjadgmcnts of
of kis mu^icai oantanporarict-
172 Frcderick R. Lovc

works published by Nietzsche has been quite limited, and in no way prom-
inent before 1888. In a lecture course first delivered in 1936-7, Martin
Heidegger44 synthesized a Nietsschean aesthetic out of the experimentai
remarks of the Nachlaß4* in which the central concept "großer Stil" figures
äs a stepping stone to the metaphysics of the Will to Power. A basic
assumption of the argument is an equation of "essential art* ("die Kunst
im wesentlichen und maßstäblichen Sinne, * p. 151) with the art of Grand
Style, which quite overlooks the rather limited use that Nietzsche made of
the term. More recently Hideo Akiyama has fruitfully examined "Nietz-
sches Idee des "großen Stils"'46 noting the indications of a dialectical pat-
tern that relates it to Nietzsche's analysis of anqient tragedy. He correctly
registers the principal anti-Wagnerian thrust bf the term äs it is used in
the middle and later period, and goes on to make various political extra-
polations.
Our intentions here are more modest. While the term Grand Style
readily invites broad application to all the arts — and is so treated by
Heidegger in his synthesis47 — the genesis of the concept äs ref lected in the
documents suggests strongly that Nietzsche did not develop any interest
in a stable concept except in his concern with the continuing crisis in the
art of music. The combination "großer Stil" may be found äs early äs the
summer of 1878 in notes that may have been associated with Vermischte
Meinungen und Sprüche. Both the note: "Der reiche Stil folgt auf den
grossen" (KGW IV 3, 395) and § 144 of Vermischte Meinungen und
Sprüche deal with the same thought complex: the transition froin severe
or classical style to baroque. In a discussion which is ostensibly applicable
to the literature, music or architecture of all periods, and which disclaims
any intention of denigrating the art termed "baroque/3 Nietzsche quite
simply reached for a contrastive term to denote the severity and economy
which had been traded off for the richness of means, complexity and dra-
matic power of typically "late" works of art. It is "der reinere und grössere
Stil" (KGW IV 3, 75) which in effect is quietly recommended to those
whose sensibilities have not become dulled by the richness of baroque art.
On the other hand § 96 in Wanderer, amidst a series of reflections on

44
"Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst", in: Nietzsche, 2 vols. (Pfullingen: Neske, 1961),
1,11—254.
45
Heidegger, Nietzsche, 1,162.
46
Hideo Akiyama, "Nietzsches Idee des 'großen Stils'", Nietzsdje-Studien 3 (1974),
105—114. .. ·
47
Following Heidegger's lead Bernhard Greiner applied the pattern of "großer Stil"
to Nietzsche's own work: Triedrich Nietzsche: Versuch und Versuchung in seinen
Aphorismen, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1972.
 Nietzsdie's Quest for a New Aesthedc of Music 1 73

literory figures and problems, brings the first Suggestion of a developing

concept: "Der grosse Stil entsteht, wenn das Schöne den Sieg über das Unge-
heure davonträgt." (KGW IV 3, 234) But there is no further discussion of
this insight, and the term goes into eclipse, Nevertheless two rather
characteristic tendencies are visible in these early examples, both of which
prove significant when Grand Style reemerges in the notes and letters after
a hiatus of nearly four years: the sense of its contrast to "late" or baroque
art and the sense of complexity overcome in a dialectical process — the
pattern whidi fairly invites comparison with Nietzsche's first book.48
In the meanwhile such things intervened äs Nietzsche's new interest
in Bizet and Rossini, the transformation of the Wagnerian Peter Gast —
with attendant speculations on dramatic music with independent inte-
grity — and lastly the disappointment over the false prophet August Bun-
gert. In his continuing analysis of the Wagnerian problem he began to de-
velop the theme of the ethical interrelationship between the artist and the
work of great formal integrity. In late summer 1881 Nietzsche set down
a broad generalization which he made immediately applicable to Wagner's
theoretical self-justifications:
Die große Form eines Kunstwerks wird an's Lidit treten, wenn der
Künstler die große Form in seinem Wesen hat! An sich die große
Form [fordern49] ist albern und verdirbt die Kunst, es heißt den Künst-
ler zur Heuchelei verführen oder das Große und Seltene zur Conven-
tions-münze unmempeln zu wollen. Ein ehrlidier Künstler, der diese
gestaltende Kraft in seinem Charakter nidit hat, ist ehrlich, sie auch
nicht in seinen Werken haben zu wollen: — wenn er sie überhaupt
leugnet und verunglimpft, so ist dies begreifiidi und mindestens zu
entschuldigen: er kann da nidit über sich. So Wagner. Aber die „un-
endliche Melodie* ist ein hölzernes Eisen — „die nidit Gestalt gewor-
dene, fertig gewordene Gestalt* — das ist ein Ausdruck für das Un-
vermögen der Form und eine Art Princip aus dem Unvermögen gemadit.
Dramatisdhe Musik und überhaupt Attitüden-Musik verträgt sidi frei-
lich am besten mit der formlosen, fließenden Musik — ist deshalb aber
niederer Gattung. (KGW V 2, 418—19)
Such sentiments form the backdrop agaiöst which Nietzsche welcomed
the complction of Peter Gast's first Opera in his new buffo style50 and on
November 20, 1881 *discovered* Bizet's Carmen at the Genoa Opera* Far
from either composcr was any pretention to "grand form* äs Nietzsche
understood it, but he couid at least rejoice in the return to clear melody
and the solid formal integrity of music with honest beginnings and cndings.
p,
0
The reading in G A XII» 182 *r*inj prcfcrable in thi$ i
S&trz, List und ÄAsfee; sec Gast'f letter 10 Nietzsche of Aögti« 26. 881 and
responsti (GBr IV, 74~5).
174 Frcdcridc R. Love

This dominant formal impression of the Carmen music was still reflected
some years later in Der Fall Wagner:
Sie [diese Musik] ist reich. Sie ist präcis. Sie baut, organisirt, wird fer-
tig: damit madit sie den Gegensatz zum Polypen in der Musik, zur
„unendlichen Melodie". Hat man je schmerzhaftere tragische Accente
auf der Bühne gehört? Und wie werden dieselben erreicht! Ohne Gri-
masse! Ohne Falschmünzerei! Ohne die Lüge des grossen Stils!
(KGWVI3,7—8)
The parallels in diese passages written more than six years apart
suggest strongly that the concept of "große Form," which involved the
composer's ability to weld conflicting and contrasting elements into an
overriding architectural unity, had in the intepm been replaced by — or
subsumed under — the umbrella term "großer Stil/' An intermediate stage
— and in effect a confirmation of this evolution of terms — may be seen
in Nietzsche's willingness to define "großer Stil" for Carl Fuchs in the
winter of 1884 - 5 äs "die höchste Steigerung der Kunst der Melodie" (GBr
I, 375), by which he meant that the structural principle of periodic melody
might in some ideal sense be extended to encompass large müsical units,
or in other words "große Form."
Whatever their other merits in Nietzsche's eyes, neither Gast's nor
Bizet's music was ever seriously considered äs .repräsentative of Grand
Style in music.51 While the philosopher clearly saw support for his peren-
nial argument with Wagner in the structural awareness (or conservatism)
of contemporaries like Gast or Bizet, his stable point of reference for Grand
Style — his single concrete demonstration among the arts — was not music
at all, but Renaissance architecture in the severe example of the Palazzo
PittL52

51
In suggesting that "großer Stil" lay in the dkection of Gast's or Bizet's music,
Akiyama (p. 111) overlooks the unambigüoüs disassociation of Bizet from this con-
cept in WA and overworks the affectionate metaphors that Nietzsche applied to
Gast's music in some letters and late publications. The notes are occasionally more
revealing. In W I l (1884) there appears to be a critical juxtaposition of a key
paraphrase of "großer Stil" and the remark: "In allen ästhetischen Urtheilen stecken
sittliche. P[eter] G [äst] ist zu gutmüthig, um Ein Wollen seinem Satze aufzuprägen,
er giebt nach." (KGW VII 2, 90) For this kind of inference (and there seem
to be other instances of relationship through juxtaposition) it would be most helpful
if the Nacblass äs printed in KGW included positive indication of the physical
location of the material in Nietzsche's notebooks — äs is the case to a very limited
extent in GA and in Podadi's Ein Blick in Notizbücher Nietzscljes, Heidelberg: Rothe,
1963.
52
See WM § 842 (KGW VIII 3, 40) and the letter to Fuchs of 1884/5 (GBr t-375).
Even this association may have been carried over from th'e term "große Form."
The 1881 formulation quoted above appears to be adjacent in the original (M III 1)
to an admonition attributed to J. Burckhardt Standing before the Palazzo Pitti:
 Nietzsdie's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 175

Sublime scorn for that whidi is aesthetically pleasing in small scale,

the association with power, even Will to Power, are diaracteristics of
Nietzsche's references to Grand Style which become common by 1884:
Der große Stil besteht in der Verachtung der kleinen und kurzen
Schönheit, ist ein Sinn für Weniges und Langes. (KGW VII 2, 91)
Zusammenhang des Aesthetischen und Sittlichen: der große Stil will
Einen starken Grundwillen und verabscheut am meisten die Zerfahren-
heit.
Am sawersten vereinigt: Ein Wille, Stärke des Grundgefühls und
Wandel der Bewegungen (Verwandlungen) (KGW VII 2, 93)
Perhaps deriving ultimately from Nietzsche's image of the Palazzo
Pitti, the architectural analogies for Grand Style become more elaborate
and eloquent in the writings of his last year; similarly it is not the facile
show of beauty that interests Nietzsche in music, but the will that creates
form and order out of the tonal diaos:
Im Bauwerk soll sich der Stolz, der Sieg über die Schwere, der Wille
zur Macht versidnbaren; Architektur ist eine Art Macht-Beredsamkeit
in Formen, bald überredend, selbst schmeichelnd, bald bloss befehlend.
Das höchste Gefühl von Macht und Sicherheit kommt in dem zum
Ausdruck, was grossen Stil hat. Die Macht, die keinen Beweis mehr
nöthig hat; die es verschmäht, zu gefallen; die schwer antwortet; die
keinen Zeugen um sich fühlt; die ohne Bewusstsein davon lebt, dass es
Widerspruch gegen sie giebt; die in sich ruht, fatalistisch, ein Gesetz
unter Gesetzen: Das redet als grosser Stil von sich. —
(GD, Streifzüge, 11; KGW VI 3,112—113)
Die Größe eines Musikers mißt sich nicht nach den schönen Gefühlen,
die [er] erregt: das glauben die Weiber — sie mißt sidhi nach der
Spannkraft seines Willens, nach der Sicherkeit, mit der das Chaos sei-
nem künstlerischen] Befehl gehorcht und Form wird, nach [der] Noth-
wendigkeit, welche seine Hand in eine Abfolge von Formen legt. Die
Größe eines Musikers — mit Einem Worte wird gemessen an seiner
Fähigkeit zum großen StiL (KGW VIII 3,298)
In its development to a full-fledged concept the formula "großer
Stil* first emerged äs the functional contrast to "baroque" in a context in
whicfa the philosopher officially maintamed his neutrality — despite the
faa that in general usage "baroque" stiU had a distinct negative con-
notation. By 1884 Nietzsche, no longer content with "baroque" äs a de-
signation for the typically *Jate* products of a culture, was beginning to
stibstitute Paul Bourget*s <^cadence.w*3 Initially he made a point of in-

* allem Hübschen und Gefälligen au» dem Wege geben, als em wcltvcradbtcndcr Gc-
^ÄltmenidK* (KGW V 2* 418). Thi$ rcmark wa$ very Hkely gcrminal äs well in the
cvolution of the linguagc used to cbaractenze * großer Seil/
" for a dUcu^sion of Nictxidbc'i appropriation of a meeded tcrm from Bourgci** Essais
dt fsy<fwte%i* conttmporaine. 2 voll. 1883—85, *ee Walter Kaufmann, Nittzuihc> 34
ed. (Prltia-ion, 1568), p, 73 n.
 176 Frederick R. Lovc

sisting on the neutrality of this new term äs well, at least for musician Carl
Fuchs* bencfit:
Was ich wahrzunehmen glaube, ist eine Veränderung der Perspektive:
man sieht das Einzelne viel zu scharf, man sieht das Ganze viel zu
stumpf, — und man hat den Willen zu dieser Optik in der Musik, vor
Allem man hat das Talent dazu! Das ist aber decadence, ein Wort, das,
wie sich unter uns von selbst versteht, nicht verwerfen, sondern nur be-
zeichnen soll. Ihr [Hugo] Riemann ist mir ein Zeichen davon, ebenso
wie Ihr Hanns von Bülow, ebenso wie Sie selbst. ... Ich meine, es gibt
auch an der decadence eine Unsumme des Anziehendsten, Werthvoll-
sten, Neuesten, Verehrungswürdigsten, — unsere moderne Musik zum
Beispiel ... Verzeihung, wenn ich noch hinzufüge: wovon ein Decadenz-
Geschmack am entferntesten ist, das ist .der große Stil: zu dem zum
Beispiel der Palazzo Pitti gehört, aber nicht die neunte Symphonie.
(GBr I, 374—5)
In effect Nietzsche here was laying. out for his correspondent the
polarity of decadence and Grand Style which structurally informs some of
the most pessimistic cultural analyses of his last productive year. What
decadence ultimately meant to Nietzsche — and he by no means remained
neutral to its ethical implications — is f ar more concretely set forth in the
published work of 1888 and in the notes which constitute Der Wille zur
Macht than is the case for its polar antithesis* Grand Style. Nietzsche finds
no aspect of modern culture that is free of decadence, üor does he exempt
himself.54 He regards his own inclination toward the peculiarly modern
experience of Wagner's music with combined hörror and thankfulness.
"Dem Philosophen aber steht es nicht frei, Wagner's zu entrathen. Er hat
das schlechte Gewissen seiner Zeit zu sein, — dazu muss er deren bestes
Wissen haben/' (WA, Vorwort; KGW VI 3, 4) The art of the so-called
Gesamtkunstwerk merely provides the clearest paradigm of the modern
disease that affects literature, morals or politics.
In dealing with literature Nietzsche seemed to prefer the more con-
ventional "classischer Stil" or "classisdier Geschmack" äs the antithesis of
decadence, possibly because his ultimate models here were the ancient works·.
he had studied at the Gymnasium.55 One of the few exceptions ,to the mo-

54
Josef Hofmiiler, «Nietzsdie," Süddeutsche Monatshefte 29 (1931, pp. 73—131), p. 68,
and Kaufmann, Nieizsc&e, pp. 72—4, have drawn attention to the possibility of
applying the key diaracterization in WA to Nietzsdie's aphoristic writing, ICaufmann
dealing with the problem more in depth. For a discussion of nihilism and its rektion .
to decadence see Wolf gang Müller-Lauter, Nfei2sc&e (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971),
Chapt. 3. .
55
His favorite whipping boys among modern "decadent" literati are ironically pro-
jected against the classical ideal in GD, Streifzüge, § 1: "Meine Unmöglichen. . .·. Les
. freres de Goncourt: oder die beiden Ajaxe im Kampf mit Homer. Musik von Offen-
bach. — Zola: oder 'die -Freude zu stinken.' — " (KGW VI 3, 105).
 Nietzsdie's Quest for a New Aesthecic of Music 177

dem literary decline he sees in Goethe, "der letzte Deutsche, vor dem ich
Ehrfurdit habe" (GD, Streifzüge § 51; KGW VI 3, 147), but there is no
parallel among Goethe's musical contemporaries. The terrri "classical" äs
a musical category is called into question äs early äs 1885.50 Beethoven is
relegated, with Wagner, to the Romantics,57 and Mozart in the same con-
text hardly seems to be taken seriously enough to corapete: "eine zärtliche
und verliebte Seele, aber ganz achtzehntes Jahrhundert, auch noch in sei-
nem Ernste. *w
The question to be asked here is not whether Nietzsdie's rather pre-
cious view of Mozart was any more or less myopic than Wagner's self-
serving estimate but whether any of the recognized giants of music's un-
paralleled development since the Renaissance were seen äs men of suffi-
cient personal stature to realize Grand Style in their works. In view of the
emphasis in Grand Style on "will* and the artist's potential for creating
large forms out of recalcitrant materials, one might have expected Nietz-
sche to focus at least briefly on those he called Deutsche der starken Rasse,
abgestorbene Deutsche, wie Heinrich Schütz, Bach und Händel." (EH,
Warum ich so klug bin, § 7; KGW VI 3, 288 f.) But these too are conspic-
uous by their absence f rom any discussion of Grand Style.
Nietzsche would have blunted the rhetorical edge of his thesis in Der
Fall Wagner: — «[Wagner] hat die Musik . . . krank gemacht" (KGW VI 3,
17) — if he had publicly voiced his pessimism at that time concerning the
health of the entire Institution of Western music. But his notes from the
same period (Spring of 1 888) are singularly unambiguous. Under the head-
ing ""A/Ksife* — und der große Styl9 we find the best summation of the
problem, and it is worth quoting at length:
Dieser Stil hat das mit der großen Leidensdiaft gemein, daß er es ver-
schmäht zu gefallen; daß er es vergißt zu überreden; daß er befiehlt;
daß er will * . . Ober das Chaos Herr werden das man ist; sein Chaos
zwingen, Form zu werden; Notwendigkeit werden in Form: logisch,
einfach, unzweideutig, Mathematik werden; Gesetz werden — : das ist
hier die große Ambition« Mit ihr stößt man zurück; nichts reizt mehr
die Liebe zu solchen Gewaltmenschen — eine Einöde legt sich um sie,
dn Schweigen, eine Furcht wie vor einem großen Frevel . * .

«* "'Klassisch* — cazüwcndbores Wort in der Musik" {KGW VII 3, 270). The cditors
of the GA as&exnbled items for a projccted work or works from W I 3a and W I 7a
fboüi 1SS5) into a compositc ''Plan einer 'Unzeitgemäßen Bctraditung' aus dem
JsJirc 1886* (GA XIV, 342—3). Podadh, Ein Blia in Notizbücher Nict*$cbt$> p. 50,
reports a simllar imprcxsion of NietxiAc's pJani for an cssay cntitlcd "Die Deut-

*7 *.*» beides instinktive WidtrsaAcr des kLusuchcn Gesdbmacks, dei strengen Stik, —
um vom 4gro£ecv fekr tikfat zu rt&tn . . ,* (KG W, VIII 3, 40)
** From W II 5 (*Ffuliiahr 1888*)- For a fcis dcvciopcd parallel discussion from 1884
m KGW VII 2, 152.
178 Frederidc R, Love

Alle Künste kennen solche Ambitiöse des großen Stils: warum fehlen
sie in der Musik? Noch niemals hat ein Musiker gebaut, wie jener Bau-
meister, der den Palazzo Pitti schuf? .,. Hier liegt ein Problem. Ge-
hört die Musik vielleicht in jene Cultur, wo das Reich aller Art Gewalt-
menschen schon zu Ende gieng? Widerspräche zuletzt der Begriff großer
Stil schon der Seele der Musik, — dem „Weibe* in unserer Musik?...
Ich berühre hier eine Cardinal-Frage: wohin gehört unsere ganze Mu-
sik? Die Zeitalter des klassischen Geschmacks kennen nichts ihr Ver-
gleichbares: sie ist aufgeblüht, als die Renaissance-Welt ihren Abend
erreichte, als die „Freiheit" aus den Sitten und selbst aus den Wünschen
davon war: gehört es zu ihrem Charakter, Gegenrenaissance zu sein?
Und anders ausgedrückt eine D£cadence-Kunst zu sein? etwa wie der
Barockstil eine D£cadence-Kunst ist? Ist sie die Schwester des Barock-
stils, da sie jedenfalls seine Zeitgenossin^ist? Ist Musik, moderne Musik
nicht schon decadence?... (KGW VIII 3, 38—39 [WM § 842])
Whereas only three years earlier, in the disposition of topics for a
projected essay,59 Nietzsche could still seriously consider the füture of music
äs "Europäer-Musik[:] Musik des großen Stils" (KGW VII 3, 270), the real
possibility of such a development had essentially vanished for him by 1888.
That he diose to formulate his ultimate conviction concerning the re-
lation of decadence and Western music in the guise of a question should not
mislead us. Whatever Nietzsche might have meant by Grand Style in re-
gard to music yet unwritten, it is clear that such music could not be de-
scribed by reference to.the development of music since the Renaissance.
At best extra-musical analogs would have to serve.
As far äs music was concerned — and Nietzsche's application of the
term elsewhere was minimal — the concept Grand Style remained literally
"unzeitgemäß/' It is, in fact, the same kind of hortatory phantasm in the
realm of Nietzsche's music aesthetic äs is the Overman in his anthropology.
Like the latter the concept remains supremely ambiguous, its parameters
delineated by analogy and contrast, its functional significance seen only
in the larger context of Nietzsche's thought; a vessel that other men might
fill with meaning according to the level of their individual insight and
vision. *
Technical details in the musical realization of Grand Style do not
concern Nietzsche further; he does not trouble himself in the last years over
particulars of melody, rhythm or form; the Symphonie drama (whidi was
his chief Option in the ultimate salvation of the Opera) is a dead issue; and
there are reasonable grounds to suspect that before the end Nietzsche had
lost all interest in the music-dramatic problem äs such.60
59
See Note 56 above.
80
See his remarks to Köselitz Mardi 27, 1887: "die Oper scheint mir überlebt9 (GBr IV,
243); April l, 1887: "Ich bin jetzt so antitheatralisdi, antidramatisch; die 'Sottise'
 Nietzschfc's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 179

Ironically, Grand Style becömes a significant concept for Nietzsche

at die moment when its factual correspondence with any musical reality
is seriousiy in questioru Nonetheless it gains a certain palpäbility or credi-
bility tkrough the functional polarity to decadence that it represents in
Nietzsche's fragmentary aesthetic System, and, äs with the Overman con-
cept, through the evocative power of its metaphorical formulations. It is a
further attempt to revalue the present human Situation from the perspective
of a truly "poetical* projection. The gloom is pervasive, but not absolute:
An sich ist die Möglichkeit nicht ausgeschlossen, dass es noch, Reste stär-
kerer Gesdiledbter, typisdi unzeitgemässer Mensdien irgendwo in Europa
giebt: von da aus wäre eine verspätete Sdiönheit und Vollkommenheit
audi für die Musik nodi zu erhoffen. Was wir, besten Falls, nodi er-
leben können, sind Ausnahmen. Von der Regel, dass die Verderbniss
obenauf, dass die Verderbniss fatalistisdi ist, rettet die Musik kein
Gott. — (WA, 2te Nachschrift; KGW VI 3, 43)

IV. Southern Music: Nietzsche9s Alternate Aesthetic

In Der Fall Wagner Nietzsche indicated bis sense of the relativity of
aesthetic judgments to biological values and hence the need for distinct
aesthetic Systems corresponding to "aufsteigendes Leben" and "niederge-
hendes Leben*: a "classical* and a "decadent* aesthetic.61 But beyond the
general categories of Grand Style and decadence which designate the ab-
solute forms of such relative Systems, Nietzsche provides us with few
criteria that would lead to a greater refinement or gradation of the various
perspectives introduced. There are no models (other than the Palazzo Pitti)
whidb we can refer to in a practical discussion of Grand Style, and since
all Western music of which we have common knowledge is placed under
the rubric decadenct we are left with no explicit guidelines for determining
relative values within the group, Wagner's music is not necessarily the
worst, but certainly the most instructive to consider because its faults have
been dogniatked by the composer into a theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
When pressed to make a choice, however, Nietzsdhe has to admit his pref-
erence for music which is ^unehrlich gegen uns** (Wagner) over that which

von der Sir reden, haftet dem Drama euentiell an. Die Vcrdcrbniß der Musik durch
die Rudbkhtcn und Convcntioncn des Dramas wird mir immer sichtbarer.,.** (GBr
IV, 2BS), The iame s^nttmcnt appears to be obscurcd iit a public formulaüon undcr
the irony of FW $ 3£S (18S7): *M«ine Sdhwcrmuth will in den Vcmta.cn und Ab-
grüßden der Vollkommenheit amruhn: dazu brauche Musik» Was geht mich da«
Drama » {KGW V 2. 299)
« WA Epilog (KGW VI 3, 44—5)
180 Fredcrick R. Lovc

is "unehrlich gegen sich" (Brahms).62 But again, such hints of a possible

gradacion System within the category decadence are not further developed.
Unexplored in this context is yet another distinct vocabulary for
judgments about music whidi makes its appearance in Nietzsche's work
about the same time äs Grand Style but which has a quite separate, though
strangely parallel development in relation to the System detailed in the
prcceding section of this paper. While "Musik des Südens* insofar äs it
refers to real, existing works can logically be assigned to the comprehensive
class of music which Nietzsche termed "decadent," the term is uniquely
lacking that implied moralistic component that underlies the aesthetic
polarity "großer Stil" — "decadence." Such factors suggest that this cate-
gory — äs well äs any implied antithesis to a'hiusical North — should be
considered on its own merits, quite apart from the overriding polarity, äs a
separate and merely coincidentally related system.
Ultimate justification however derives from the fact that, unlike the
biologically based polarity, Nietzsche's alternate aesthetic is closely tied
to the pleasure principle and hence more allied with traditional aesthetic
value Systems. Nietzsdie's South: — "Musik des Südens," "südliche Musik,"
"mein Süden in der Musik" — is effectively a private tag for music that
agreed with him. It is applied exclusively to music among the arts, although
Nietzsche occasionally responded to the "southe'rn" atmosphere of certain
literary works and himself plied aii unmistakable "southern" imagery in
his poems and pseudo-biblical prose. Apart from the semi-jocular formula
"H faut mediterraniser la musique!" (WA § 3; KGW VI 3, 10) we find
little of the preceptive force that is inherent in Grand Style nor the Stigma
of decay of its antithesis. "Music of the South," when diaracterized at all,
was circumscribed in terms such äs Nietzsche would occasionally apply
to his own literary style, particularly that of Zarathustra: deceptive
naivete combined with great subtlety ("heiter und tief"); refined awareness
of its own modernity and a conscious delight in the deliberate exploitation
of tradition. An admittedly "late" art, "Musik des Südens" is that for which
Nietzsche came to feel deep sympathy äs his refuge from Wagnerian music.
It is Zarathustra's answer to Parsifal.
It hardly needs to be said that Southern Music for Nietzsche was not
necessarily music of the geographical South. Although the term itself was
generated out of the traditional polarization of "northern" indistinctness,
romanticism and metaphysics versus the clarity, classicism and earth-
bound realism of the South (a favorite clicb^ of German writers, at least
62
See WA 2. Nachschrift, where Nietzsche scoffs at the idea of Brahms äs heir to
Beethoven: "Er hat die Melancholie des Unvermögens;.,." (KGW VI 3, 41—42)
 Nietwche's Quest for a New Acsthetic of Music 181

since Goethe), Nietzsche clearly intensified the negative nationalistic di-

mension. It is opposed not so much to the North äs such in his usage, but
to all that is German.
The published works äs early äs Wanderer contain preliminary
indicarions of the evolution of the term,es but the actual formula "südliche
Musik** occurs first in a note associated with Morgenröthe in whidi both
Haydn and Chopin are discussed under this rubric (KGW V l, 368 f.)» In
Fröhliche Wissenschaft we find Nietzsche's admonition to the German artist
to reach beyond himself *hin nadh einer besseren, leichteren, südlicheren,
sonnenhafteren Welt* (§ 105; KGW V 2, 139), a ciear indication of the
further functional development of the association. For Nietzsche's "South"
has little to do with such well-known cohabitants of the nineteenth Century
äs Bellini or Verdi (Donizetti does not appear to enter Nietzsche's sphere
at all), but a great deal to do with Northerners like Nietzsche himself who
might be in need of Mediterranean restoration. It involves the superim-
position of the world of pagan antiquity on the modern and the resultant
characterisric combuiation of surface naivet , amoralism and modern self-
consciousness, but above all a world of sunlight, strong color and firm
contour. Such a conception of the South was elaborately set forth for the
first time in Jenseits § 255, where Nietzsche is very close to the poetic
atmosphere of Zarathustra:
Gegen die deutsche Musik halte ich mancherlei Vorsicht für geboten.
Gesetzt, dass Einer den Süden liebt, wie idi ihn liebe, als eine grosse
Sdiule der Genesung, im Gästigsten und Sinnlichsten, als eine unbändige
Sonnenfülle und Sonnen-Verklärung, weldie sidi über ein selbstherr-
Kches, an sich glaubendes Dasein breitet: nun, ein Solcher wird sich
etwas vor der deutschen Musik in Acht nehmen lernen, weil sie, indem
sie seinen Geschmack zurück verdirbt, ihm die Gesundheit mit zurück
verdirbt* Ein solcher Südländer, nicht der Abkunft, sondern dem Glau-
ben nach, muss, falls er von der Zukunft der Musik träumt, auch von
einer Erlösung der Musik vom Norden träumen und das Vorspiel einer
tieferen, machtigeren, vielleicht böseren und geheimnissvolleren Musik in
seinen Ohren haben, einer überdeutsdien Musik, welche vor dem Anblick
des blauen wollustigen Meers und der mittelländischen Himmels-Helle
nidbt verklingt, vergilbt, verblasst, wie es alle deutsche Musik thut,
einer übereuropäischen Musik, die noch vor den braunen Sonnen-Unter-
gängen der Wüste Recht behält, deren Seele mit der Palme verwandt ist
und unter grosseci schönen einsamen Raubthieren heimisch zu sein und
zu schweifen versteht . .... Ich konnte mir eine Musik denken, deren sei*
tcnstcr Zauber darin bestünde« das$ sie von Gut und Böse nichts mehr
wösste > . . (KGW VI 2, 208 L}

WS § 152: *Mman - . . findet idbe lnfjptra«Oftet> . . * itn SAauen . . « de*

Ldbetu: er träumte immer von Italien..,* and WS $154$ "Heitere
182 Frcderick R. Lovc

In the dialectic of the chapter "Völker und Vaterländer" this aphorism

appears to have a special function. It helps to counteract the sympathetic
eloquence of Nietzsche's remarks upon rehearing the "prachtvolle, über-
ladene, schwere und späte Kunst" of the Meistersinger prelude (§ 240) by
expanding on the appended negatives: "Alles in Allem keine Schönheit,
kein Süden, Nichts von südlicher feiner Helligkeit des Himmels, Nichts von
Grazie, kein Tanz, kaum ein Wille zur Logik" (KGW VI 2, 187 - 8). It re-
inforces the Suggestion in § 245 that Mozart with "sein Glaube an den
Süden" (KGW VI 2, 195) is a significant though fragile ally against Beet-
hoven and the Romantics, and it appears to comment directly on the
affirmation at the end of § 254 that Bizet, in composing for "die geborenen
Mittelländer, die "guten Europäer'," had discövered "ein Stück Süden der
Musik" (KGW VI2,208).
Hermann Levi, Wagner's first Parsifal conductor at Bayreuth, thought
he recognized a further allusion in the aphorism quoted, privy äs he was
to Nietzsche's efforts behind the scene 011 behalf of Peter Gast's music. In-
deed, the composer need not have laughed off this Suggestion at all^4 If he
was really unaware, in February 1887, of the connection between Nietz-
sche's "Musik des Südens" and his own compqsitions, any doubt ought to
have been dispelled when he went through the manuscript for Ecce homo
shortly after Nietzsche's collapse.65

Musik" conipared to "ein schwerer Südwein" (KGW IV 3, 254); see also the use of
"südländisch" in diaracterizing the effect of Gast's and Bizet's music in 1881 (GBr
IV, 78) and Hugo Daffner, Nietzsches Randglossen zu Bizets Carmen (Regensburg:
Bosse, 19382), p. 41.
64
Die Briefe Peter Gasts < . . , II, 76.
65
Warum ich so klug bin, § 7: "Ich würde Rossini nicht zu missen wissen, noch weniger
meinen Süden in der Musik, die Musik meines Venediger maestro Pietro Gasti"
(KGW VI 3, 289). Evidence indicates that direct associätion of Gast's music with
this developing code word goes back at least to 1884—5, when Nietzsche bfought
Carl Fuchs up to date after a long pause in their correspondence: "Das letzte, was
ich mir gründlich angeeignet habe ist Bizet's Carmen; ... außerdem die Musik eines.
unentdeckten Genies, welches den Süden liebt wie ich ihn liebe und zur Naiyetät des
Südens das Bedürfniß und die Gabe der Melodie hat." (GBr I, 373J A Nachlaß
poem dating from late 1884 to which earlier editors applied the title "Musik des
Südens" (GA VIII, 371) has an alternate Version with a more specific reference to
Gast (in Octqber 1884 Nietzsche witnessed the orchestral rehearsal of the overture
to Gast's Venetian opera and knew him to be considering a Greek theme for his
next opus):
Nun wird mir Alles noch zu Theil Aus dumpfem deutschem Ton-Gedräng
Der Adler meiner Hoffnung fand Mozart Rossini und Chopin
Ein reines, neues Griechenland Ich seh nach griechischen Geländen
Der Ohren und der Sinne Heil « Pas Schiff dich, deutscher Orpheus^ wenden.
(KGW VII 3, 10; cf. GA VIII [1906], 454—5)
 Nietzsche's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 183

In his autobiography Nietfcsdhe had suggested the proximity of his

experience near the boulder of Surlei "6000 FUSS jenseits von Mensch und
Zeit" and his discovery in the spring of 1881, "zusammen mit meinem
maestro und Freunde Peter Gast, einem gleichfalls 'Wiedergeborenen', dass
der Phönix Musik mit leichterem und leuchtenderem Gefieder, als er je ge-
zeigt, an uns vorüberflog.** (KGW VI 3, 333) Regarding Gast äs an
extension of himself, he saw — at least in retrospect — the parallel between
his proteg^s turn away from Wagnerian raethods towards the opera buffa
and his own shift toward the "lighter" vein in Fröhliche Wissenschaft and
particularly Zarathustra, whose controlling idea had derived its palpability
for him from that experience at Surlei. If indeed Also sprach Zarathustra
merits a place among the *symphoniesw of literature68 then it would surely
have to be included among the "Southern*1 masterpieces according to
Nietzsche's terminology. We have seen how the atmosphere and poetic
imagery of that work tended to spill over into the literary representation
of Nietzsche's musical "South/* äs if on some deeper level these otherwise
distinct types of aesthetic expression existed there for him side by side. It
was only one step further for him to develop the aesthetic parallel between
Gast's music and Zarathustra in more specific terms. This step was taken in
a fairly elaborate passage intended for the expanded edition of Fröhliche
Wissenschaft of 1887.67

Unter Künstlern der Zukunft. — Ich sehe hier einen Musiker, der die
Sprache Rossini** und Mozarts wie seine Muttersprache redet, jene zärt-
liche, tolle, bald zu weiche, bald zu lärmende Volkssprache der Musik
mit ihrer schelmischen Indulgenz gegen Alles, audi gegen das „Ge-
ineine41, — welcher sich aber dabei ein Lächeln entschlüpfen läßt, das
Lächeln des Verwöhnten, Raffinirten, Spätgeborenen, der sidi zugleich
aus Herzensgrunde bestandig noch über die gute alte Zeit und ihre sehr

ThU vcrsion was published in a sUghtly different reading by Arthur Seid! in "Was
dünket Euch um Peter Gast," Di* Mutik I (1901/2), 851—860, 958—968, and in
Kunst ttnd Kultur, Kritisdbe Essays von A, S. (Berlin; Leipzig: Sdiuster & LÖffler,
1S32), pp. 403—428.
** Ste EH, Za $ l: ^Man darf vieHciAt den ganzen Zarathustra unter die Musik
reißen* (KGW VI 3t 333), and the remark attributed to Gustav Mahler: "Sein
Zarathustra ist ganz aus dem Geiste der Musik geboren, ja geradezu 'symphonisdi*
Aufgebaut.* (Bernard Scharlttt, "Gespräch mit Mahler,* Musikblattcr des Anbrud>s
2 [Vicnna, 192CJ* 309-^lCt quoted from Luitpold Grießer, Nietztcfoe und Wagner
rvicnea: Helder-Pidilcr-Tonpiky AG, 1923], p. 103)
e7
See tfce edltors" (listed äs EJk Fämer-Nictssdbe and Gast) notc, G A XIV, 440:
*So!hc ürspniagiicii infs V. Budi der "RröhL Wist/ (zwbdhcn No. 367 und 36S) zu
stehen kommen.* A ciear parallel in a kner to Gau of November 19, 1886 (GBr IV,
269 .) support» the 4attag m the latter pait of 1886t in tim^ for inclmion in *Wtr
Furatlosen*»
184 Frcderick R. Lovc

gute, sehr alte, altmodische Musik lustig macht: aber ein Lächeln voll
Liebe, voll Rührung selbst ... Wie? ist das nicht die beste Stellung, die
wir heute zum Vergangnen überhaupt haben können — auf diese Weise
dankbar zurückblicken und es selbst „den Alten" nachmachen, mit viel
Lust und Liebe für die ganze großväterliche Ehrbarkeit und Unehr-
barkeit, aus der wir herstammen, und ebenso mit jenem sublimen Körn-
chen eingemischter Verachtung, ohne welches alle Liebe zu schnell ver-
dirbt und modrig wird, „dumm* wird... Vielleicht dürfte inan sich
etwas Ähnliches auch für die Welt des Worts versprechen und ausdenken,
nämlich daß einmal ein verwegener Dichter-Philosoph käme, raffinirt
und „spätgeboren" bis zum Exceß, aber befähigt, die Sprache der
Volks-Moralisten und heiliger Männer von Ehedem zu reden, und dies
so unbefangen, so ursprünglich, so begeistert, so lustig-geradewegs, als
wenn er selbst einer der „Primitiven" waire; dem aber, der Ohren noch
hinter seinen Ohren hat, einen Genuß ohne Gleichen bietend, nämlich
zu hören und zu wissen, was da eigentlich geschieht, — wie hier die
gottloseste und unheiligste Form des modernen Gedankens beständig in
die Gefühlssprache der Unschuld und Vorwelt zurückübersetzt wird, und
in diesem Wissen den ganzen heimlichen Triumph des übermüthigen
Reiters mitzukosten, der diese Schwierigkeit, diesen Verhau vor sich
aufthürmte und über die Unmöglichkeit selbst hinweggesetzt ist, —
(KGW VIII l, 245—6)

So carefully is the parallel worked out and clearly worded to agree

with the fiction of publication prior to Zaratbustra that the question arises
why Nietzsche decided to drop this aphorism from the Supplement to Fröh-
liche Wissenschaft. It must have occurred to him very soon that the reference
to Gast would be identified well beyond the circle of "insiders" like
Hermann Levi. Predictably the retiring cpinposer would have experienced
real shock over a public comparison of his inusic and the work that Nietz-
sche privately considered his masterpiecej but I find no evidence that there
was any prior consultation between the two. It is most likely that Nietzsche
became aware that his speculation after the fact was a highly personal
distortion of the artistic motives of both men and an association across
aesthetic lines whidi under the circumstances would have done neither of
them mudi good. Even now it is difficult for many readers to savor the
irony of Nietzsdie's "unholy" sermoii in biblical prose; the attempt to
glorify Gast's derivative idiom äs an arcane form of nmsical parody seems
no less absurd today than it would have to Nietzsche's contemporaries,
Yet what Nietzsche offers us in this highly interesting passage is a
prescription by whidi even the "late" (he barely restrains himself from
using the word "decadent") artist can hope to assert himself from within
a mature tradition, to distaiice himself from it thröugh self-conscious
manipulation rather than making a completely fresh Start. It is a formula
 Nietfc$ch«s*$ Qucst for a New Acsthetic of Music 185

well-suited to describe the ambiguous relationship of Thomas Mann and

other "late-bourgeois* artists to their cultural heritage.
NietfcscheYconcern, through the major part of his intellectual career,
was escaping from or compensating for what he came to recognize äs his
native Romanticism and decadence. His <cantiromantisdie Selbstbehand-
lung*68 required the South in its various manifestations äs "eine grosse
Schule der Genesung" (KGW VI 2, 208), and the aesthetic pleasure he seem-
ed to take in "Musik des Südens1* involved an unmistakable therapeutic
component. To pursue the details of Nietzsdie's changing physiological
relation to music would lead far beyond reasonable limits for this study,
but some of the characteristic developments can be reviewed here.
If at Bayreuth in 1876 Nietzsdhte overreacted to Wagners music in a
manner which caused him to think of it later äs a dangerous narcotic, then
the appropriate treatment of his condition required — concurrently with
the intellectual cold shower that produced Menschliaes, Allzumenschliches
— music of a far different sort than had been his regulär fare during the
early years. The "dionysian* art was blacklisted in its most diaracteristic
form: "Dieser Tag gab mir wieder starke und hohe Gefühle", he wrote in
1881, "und wenn ich an seinem Abende Musik und Kunst haben könnte, so
weiss ich wohl, welche Musik und Kunst ich nicht haben möchte, nämlich
alle jene nicht, welche ihre Zuhörer berauschen und zu einem Augenblicke
starken und hohen Gefühls empor treiben möchte.* (FW § 86; KGW V 2,
119) And in the 1887 edition of the same book, at the end of a discussion
of his specific physiological objection to Wagner's music, he all but names
the musical amidote that he craves:
Und so frage idi midi: was will eigentlidi mein ganzer Leib von der
Musik überhaupt? Idi glaube, seine Erleichterung: wie als ob alle ani-
malischen Funktionen durch leidite kühne ausgelassne selbstgewisse
Rhythmen beschleunigt werden sollten; wie als ob das eherne, das
bleierne Leben durdi goldene gute zärtliche Harmonien vergoldet werden
sollte. Meine Schwermuth will in den Verstedken und Abgründen der
Vollkommenheit ausruhn: dazu brauche idi Musik, Was geht mich das
Drama an! (FW $ 368; KGW V 2, 299)
Although Nietzsche on occasion let it be known that he found Gast's
music somcwhat short on sentiment (GBr IV, 121) and that Rossini's was
not really sensuous or passionate enough for him (GBr IV, 98), it was
precisely $uch unsentimental, unsensuous, sunny, naive, rhythmic and
basically ^undramatic" music that camc closcst to satisfying his require-
ments for a music of relaxation and recreation- By 1B88 Niet2»die knew
and valued the music of eight Rossini operas (GBr IV, 430); his referencc

*» M A H, Vorrede 2 (KGW IV J, 5).

 186 Frcderick R. Lovc

to Gast in a letter to Rohde of February 23, 1886 needs no Interpretation:

"Der Himmel hat mir zum Glück eine Art David geschenkt.... Wir haben
Süden, Sonne 'um jeden Preis", helle, harmlose, unschuldige Mozartische
Glücklichkeit und Zärtlichkeit in Tönen nöthig" (GBr II, 577). For the
troubled Saul-Nietzsche Gast's music epitomized one extreme of his musical
South: "Ich habe durch Nichts so viel Wiedergeburt, Erhebung und Er-
leichterung erfahren wie durch Ihre Musik." (May 31, 1888; GBr IV, 380)
But just äs clearly Bizet represented the other.
Ridier in sensuous melody, more colorful in harmony (and orchestral-
ly) than any music of Rossini or Peter Gast, the music of UArlesienne and
Carmen also had an altogether different effect on Nietzsdie's nervous
System. Even in the first flush of enthusiasni over Bizet's opera in 1881
there was a strong suspicion that he was subject to a Carmen hangover,69 a
hint that even in this enjoyment moderatipn was mandatory. The effect
was not unlike that of an overindulgence in the music of Chopin some
eighteen months earlier in Venice,70 and may well have had a similar basis:
in the exploitation of the musical resources of their day both composers
wielded a brush heavy with coloristic tedmiques in harmony and/or
orchestration. When in later years Nietzsche was fully able to withstand
the aesthetic excitement of an evening of Carmen without concern for the
morrow, this music appeajrs to have had an unusually stimulating effect on
him, but more on the order of a consciousness-expanding drug than of a
conventional narcotic. In this respect Bizet's music had a function for
Nietzsche just a foreign to the sphere of ordinary aesthetics äs was the case
with Gast's "relaxation" music. This particular dimension of the musical
experience is clearly implied when Nietzsche reported the impact of the
Carmen premiere at the new theater in Nice to Gast late in 1887: "ein
wahres Ereignis für mich: ich habe in diesen 4 Stunden mehr erlebt und be-
griffen als sonst in 4 Wochen." (GBr IV, 343)
Of course this perfectly serious comment has to be read in connection
with the elaborate paraphrase of the same effect in Der Fall Wagner, where
the general levity fails to obscure the fact that Nietzsche has unblmkingly
accepted this new criterion into his "Southern" music aesthetic. In the
69
See the postcard to Köselitz Dec. 5, 1881: "Recht krank inzwisdien, dodi wohl
durch Carmen --" (GBr IV, 84).
70
Köselitz' letter to Franz Overbeck Mardi 26, 1880, records the pieces played, some
repeatedly, from the Barcarole, Op. 60, to the Fantdisie in F-minor, Qp. 49: "So
braditen wir zwei Stunden unter freudiger Erregung hin; Nietzsdie sagte mir gleich
hinterher, als ^wir uns trennten: 'Das werde ich wieder zu büßen haben.' Und .wirk-
lich. Am nächsten Tage fand ich ihn wieder vom wütendsten Sdimerz ganz über-
mannt." (Podach, Gestalten um Nietzsche [Weimar: Erich Lieditenstein, 1932], pp.
84—5) -
 Nietzsche's Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 187

same work which proclaims the first principle of his aesthetic to be: "Das
Gute ist leicht, alles Göttliche läuft auf zarten Püssen" (§ 1; KGW VI 3, 7),
the second principle cleariy reads: "Das Gute madit midi fruchtbar/*
Und nochmals, ich werde ein besserer Mensch, wenn mir dieser Bizet
zuredet. Auch ein besserer Musikant, ein besserer Zuhörer. Kann man
überhaupt noch besser zuhören? — Ich vergrabe meine Ohren noch im-
ter diese Musik, ich höre deren Ursache. Es scheint mir, dass ich ihre Ent-
stehung erlebe — ich zittere vor Gefahren, die irgend ein Wagniss be-
gleiten, ich bin entzuckt über Glücksfälle, an denen Bizet unschuldig
ist. — Und seltsam! im Grunde denke ich nicht daran, oder weiss es
nicht, wie sehr ich daran denke. Denn ganz andere Gedanken laufen
mir während dem durch den Kopf... Hat man bemerkt, dass die Musik
den Geist frei madrt? dem Gedanken Flügel giebt? dass man um so
mehr Philosoph wird, je mehr man Musiker wird? — Der graue Him-
mel der Abstraktion wie von Blitzen durchzuckt; das Licht stark genug
für alles Filigran der Dinge; die grossen Probleme nahe zum Greifen;
die Welt wie von einem Berge aus überblickt. -»- Ich definirte eben das
philosophische Pathos. — Und unversehens fallen mir Antworten in den
Schooss, ein kleiner Hagel von Eis und Weisheit, von gelösten Proble-
men ... Wo bin idi? — Bizet macht midi fruchtbar. Alles Gute macht
midi fruchtbar. Ich habe keine andre Dankbarkeit, ich habe auch keinen
ändern Beweis dafür, was gut ist. — (§ l; KGW VI 3, 8)
It was a feature of nineteenth Century Romantic tradition that
individuals of sensitivity and literary culture would let their minds wander
imaginatively at concerts, gently stimulated by the music to create a poetic
scenario, which, if written down, could be used to guide other, less confident
concertgoers. The music critiques of E. T* A. Hoffmann and Robert Schu-
mann, for example, set a style in Germany for communicating to the broad
musical public, and this sort of thing has remained an element of populär
"music appreciation" to this day* Even Nietzsche and Köselitz amused
themselves on occasion by inventing subtitles and imagining scenes for
various piano pieces of Chopin.71 But what Nietzsche appears to be de-
scribing in his pamphlet against Wagner goes far beyond such harmless
poetic activity. Inasmuch äs he found certain music freeing his mind from
its routine inhibicions, opening up new vistas into complicatad relation-
ships (his "philosopliical pathos* here borders on the mystical experience),
that music was in effect being degraded to the function of a mind-expan-
ding drug.
It i$ cüstomary when dealing with Der Fall Wagner to point out that
Nietzsche privately ansisted to a few friends that the Contraposition of

T1
See the excerpc» from K5*eKu* ktter to Overfe^k May 12^ 1880 in C. A* Bcrnoulli,
Frcnz Ovtrbeck und fr. Niet2i&e: Eine Freundsaajt (Jena: Dkderia*, 1908), I,
447.
188 foedcrick R. Love

Bizet and Wagner in that work was only an Ironie antithesis, and therefore
not to be taken too seriously,72 The irony of the work is certainly genuine;
but the fact remains that irony and humor enabled Nietzsche to get quite
a few things off his ehest which would have been difficult or embarrassing
in any other way. He really had nothing to gain in his attack on Wagner
by pointing to the "productive" effect of Bizet's music: he was gratuitously
supplying his critics with ammunition.78 Such a disclosure is probably
ascribable to the gradual loss of self-restraint that generally marks the
writings of his last year, but is no cause to dismiss out of hand anything
that he committed to paper during that time. Carmen may well have made
him a better "Musikant," but Nietzsche's "music*' was composed and
played in the recesses of the mind. Described in crude terms, it was the
case of an unrelated mental activity being set in motion by a superior kind
of musical "noise."
In all fairness, however, it should be pointed out that by 1888 Nietz-
sche was so familiär with Carmen (the 20 hearings claimed are probably
not mudi of an exaggeration!) that concentrated attention to the musieal
or dramatic details was hardly necessary.74 Presumably he had sudi a
distinct sense of satisfaction and well-being in the presence of this music
that he found his mind free to roam or "play" in other spheres, which
turned out to be productive both in a spontaneous, direct way, and also in
an indirect or delayed harvest of " Solutions" to problems that had occupied
him intensely.
Whatever the case, this was a highly personal response to an individual
Situation, hence not qualitatively different from other therapeutic aspects
of his private aesthetic of Southern Music. But to claim the "problem sol-
ving power" of music äs a generäl aesthetic criterion is clearly an improper
extrapolation from a private experience. None of Nietzsche's discussions
of Southern Music otherwise make the claim of universality; at best it is
a barely communicable aesthetic. The philosopher recognized quite well in
the end that nothing had been formulated whidi composers or music lovers

72
Martin Vogel, Apollinisch und Dionysisch, pp. 229—231; Helge Hultberg, Die Kunst^
auffassung Nietzsches, p. 39. Both refer to the letter addressed to Fuchs Dec. 27,
1888 (GBr I, 407).
73
See Richard Pohl, "Der Fall Nietzsche: ein psychologisches Problem", Musikalisches
WocÄen&/Äfi, 19 (1888), 517—20. Pohl, quoting the passage in question from WA,
comments: "Da haben wir den Typus eines unmusikalischen Menschen." (quoted from
Vogel, p. 230; Cf. Krummel, No. 82) -
74
Nietzsches Randglossen zu Bizets Carmen, compiled by Hugo Daffner from the
piano-vocal score sent to Köselitz in Jan. 1882, show that Nietzsche paid close
attention to these matters at the outset. Vogel, ignoring such evidence of Nietzsche's
musical acuity, concludes: "Nietzsche hörte also nicht genau hin, sondern überließ
sich seinen Gefühlen und Gedanken." (p. 231}
 Nietzschc's Qucst for a New Aesthctic of Music 189

alike could live by, either at the prescriptive level of Grand Style or in the
private sphere of Southern Music. There rnay be no better summation of
the Situation af ter he had sent Der Fall Wagner to press than the following
excerpt from a notebook used during the summer of 1888:
Wir entbehren in der Musik einer Ästhetik, die den Musikern Gesetze
aufzuerlegen verstünde und ein Gewissen sdiüfe; wir entbehren, was eine
Folge davon ist, eines eigentlidien Kampfes um „Principien* — denn
als Musiker lachen wir über die Herbartschen Velleitäten auf diesem
Gebiet ebenso sehr, als über die Schopenhauers, Thatsächlich ergiebt sich
hieraus eine große Sdiwierigkeit: wir wissen die Begriffe „Muster*,
»Meisterschaft*, „Vollkommenheit* nicht mehr zu begründen — wir
tasten mit dem Instinkte alter Liebe und Bewunderung blind herum im
Reich der Werthe, wir glauben beinahe „gut ist was uns gefällt" ...
(KGW VIII 3, 285 f. [WM § 838])

V. Beyond Theory
Ultimately it is that element of doubt ("Wir glauben beinahe ..."),
that residuum of disbelief in an aesthetic based solely on pleasure, that may
be said to have been the starting point for Nietzsche's fragmented late
aesthetic Whatever his inclinations may have been at various times
towards music whidi he successively termed "baroque" or "decadent," it
was his intellectual suspicion of such pleasure, either in himself or in others,
that led him in the end to posit an alternative in Grand Style. But since
Grand Style remained a theoretical construct corresponding to no music
yet written, Nietzsche had no way of predicting his own or anyone eise's
pleasurable response to the actualized ideal. One can see how Grand Style
rnight have functioned within Nietzsche's completed philosophy äs a
provocation to the aesthetic Status quo, a beacon and a goal for a new
breed of artist-musicians, theinselves Creators with some of the ruthlessness
of the hypostatized Ovcrman* But short of that Grand Style at least shares
with the central phantasm of Zarathustra the fact that it does not yield
to def inmon.
In marked contrast to the ethically toned dialectic of decadencc and
Grand Style, there is Nietzsdbe's essemially private music aesthcdc, having
little inteü«tua! coherence other than its own association with the South
and a persistent relation to the pleasure principle (or in Nietzsche's case
his producdve weli-being)* As a typically "Izte" art whidi still respects
and prcscrves certain formal traditions, Southern Music might be said to
sharc some characterisucs of both decadencc and Grand Style» but other
than this incidcntal area of conintonality, it cxists on a plane quite by it-
seif. The proximity to ihe pkasure princtple makes it inappropriate here
to apply ehe term "syatheris.* Yct it should be noted that N&et^sdie almost
190 Frederick R. Love

always included a qualifier — äs if the pleasure principle alone were

somehow suspect. On the one hand the pleasure of Southern Music meant
relief, relaxation, and recovery — whether from Romantic music or the
rigors of concentrated thought; on the other it meant enjoyment which set
the s tage, primed the pump, so to speak, for further "production." Southern
Music was never without its positive function in respect to Nietzsche's
work. Thus Nietzsche had a utilitarian justification for such pleasure. But
did that mean that there was still pläce for the enjoyment of music that
utterly lacked this worthwhile dimension?
No attempt to set forth the parameters of Nietzsdie's relation to
music — theoretical or otherwise — can afford to ignore what must be the
deepest, most private, even repressed level of his "taste." After turning his
back on Richard Wagner, Nietzsche would have made a better ease for his
new position if the discussions of Wagner's music had gradually disappeared
from his work. Instead, the attempt to discredit Wagner continues to sur-
face äs a persistent theme of his late work, and even appears to crescendo
in the last year. The Student of psychology must surely question the vehe-
mence, the defensiveness, even the desperation of these attacks on Wagner
and Wagner's art, and the close reader of the texts cannot overlook the
ambiguities, the asides and the postscripts to a pamphlet like Der Fall Wag-
ner.
The music of Wagner — possibly inseparable in Nietzsche's memory
from the remembrance of his total Wagnerian experience — persisted to,
the end in its hold over him. "Die Musik muß sehr passionirt oder sehr
sinnlich sein" (GBr IV, 98) was a confession to Gast that had specific ref-
erence to C*armen, but how much more to the later Wagnerian music! In
the same pamphlet which tirelessly deflates Wagner from almost every
angle Nietzsche is still able to single out the composer "der kleine Kostbar-
keiten bei Seite legt: unsern grössten Melancholiker der Musik, voll von
Blicken, Zärtlichkeiten und Trostworten, die ihm Keiner vorweggenom-
men hat, den Meister in Tönen eines schwermüthigen und schläfrigen
Glücks" (WA § 7; KGW VI 3, 23). Irony or sarcasm was not at all Nietz-
sche's overriding motive äs he termed Wagner "unsern grössten Miniaturi-
sten der Musik" (KGW VI 3, 22) — although he was surely aware of
the potential shock-value of such a Statement for contemporary admirers
of Wagnerian bombast. The language of these asides is among Nietzsdie's
most sentimental, and sentiment is hardly called for in this work. Is it not
possible that it was generated in large measure through the recollection of
old personalfeelings for Wagner, even äs Nietzsche was.engaging in attack
on the most dangerously decadent art works that he knew? It may well be
hopeless to try to sort out all the musical and extra-musical factors that
 Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 191

shaped his attitude toward Wagner aiid whidb are reflected in the way he
wrote about Wagner's art. But it appears symptomatic that in Ecce homo
Nietzsche singles out Tristan und Isolde äs the focus of his Üfelong attrac-
tion to Wagnerian music, celebrating Wagner's "non plus ultra" (KGW
VI 3, 288) in a way unparalleled since his first Book* Yet it can be demon-
strated, contrary to his cläim, that his attachment to Wagnerian music had
been at best ambiguous, and to Tristan specifically even somewhat ne-
gative before his association with the composer between 1869 and 1872 in
Tribsdien.7* Subsequently it was the single work which Nietzsche had
avoided demeaning in any public Statement,76 a work that for him had
remained sacrosanct, although he had not heard it performed for sixteen
years, and perhaps precisely because he had never given himself the
diance of hearing it anew from his iater musical perspective. We cannot
be at all sure of his strictly musical judgment of the work in the stränge
emotional state in which Nietzsche penned his autobiography late in 1888.
But apart from the almost explosive resurgence of feelings about
Wagner and his music during his last productive year, marked near the end
by extreme defensiveness toward "activist" ex-Wagnerians like Köselitz
and Carl Fudhs,77 Nietzsche's general practice was to expose himself to
music that was not only physically tolerable but beneficial, that relaxed
and freed his mind for activity in areas where he might more justly claim
the attention of posterity. It is not hard to see that mudi of his Iater
theorizing about musical and music-dramatic problems was a self-protec-
tive search for weapons thac could be exploited against the music that he
imellectually disapproved of and found upsetting to his System, for ra-
tionalizations of any sort that could reduce the general danger of the very
art to which he, äs a self-confessed decadent, was fatally attracted.
Neither the music of Bizet, Gast or any other composer could have taken
the unique place of Wagnerian music for him, for reasons that go far
beyond the obvious musical ones, "Andre Musiker kommen gegen Wagner
nicht in Betracht,* he pointedly added to Der Fall Wagner for the benefit
of those who might otherwise have taken comfort in the exclusive assault
on Wagner's art,78

n
Ycung Nictzsd>* and iht Wagnerian ExperUnce, «p. pp. 63—66,
7
* A Xaalaß passagc from . 18^8: *Idh xiebc Handvdiuhc atif wenn idi die Partitur
<ics Tristan lese* (citcd by Vogel, p. 227) actoaily occurs toward the ctid of a scrious
«äiscutsJoa of crouasm and crotk tubstitution in music, citing Wagncr*s äs a specific
cTcamplc of rnmic owing *om* of it$ appcal to the unconscious tamfaction of a
general urgc. Thai Nittzsdic could turn a thcoretical conceru about the Trittan
music itiio a rüde >okc need not bc talccn a$ A personal indictmcnt of it,
™ See aotc 10 above»
** Zweite Nadi&diri/t (KGW VI 3f 43). Nictzwic had, among others, the admirers; of
192 Fredcrick R. Love

For more than ten years after his dismal experience at the Bayreuth
festival of 1876, every one of Nietzsdie's encounters with Wagnerian
music that can be documented proved to be more than his nervous System
could comfortably sustain. There were his agonies in Riva (Lago di Garda)
in the spring of 1880 when Köselitz and an Austrian Wagnerite — with
apparent encouragement from Nietzsche — played through the entire
forest scene from Act III of Die Götterdämmerung on the piano.79 In the
fall of 1884 Nietzsche quite consciously repeated the experiment, and his
reaction äs reported to Malwida von Meysenbug was not less negative:
"Was mir diese wolkige, schwüle, vor allem schauspielerische und präten-
tiöse Musik zuwider ist!" (GBr III, 617).80 (Except for his understandable
self-consciousness about being seen there he would have carried through a
similar experiment with Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882.81) The obvious under-

Brahms in mind. See David Thatcher, "Nietzsche and Brahms: A Forgotten Rela-
tionship," Musik and Leiters 54, 3 (July 1973), 261—280, esp. 276 ff.
79
Köselitz' letter of March 26, 1880 to Franz Overbeck reports an incident at the Hotel
du lac in Riva: "In der zweiten Woche sagte mir N., wenn ich etwas spielen wolle,
solle ich nur spielen; er wohnte schräg über dem Zimmer, wo der Flügel stand. Ich
spielte also an jenem Abend, unter feierlicher Assistenz namentlich eines Grafen Pap-
penheim, die ganze große Scene mit den Rheintöchtern im III. Akt der Götter-
dämmerung auf einen Strich. Damit hatte ich zu viel des Schlimmen getan. N., der
dieser Scene sogar persönlich nahesteht, hatte darunter Furchtbares ausgestanden; als
ich auf sein Zimmer kam; war er ganz matt und beschwor mich hoch und heilig, ich
solle ihm nie wieder diese verrückte verzerrte Musik Wagner's hören lassen, bei der
fast jeder Accord eine grelle gesuchte Absonderlichkeit sei, er könne Musik überhaupt^
kaum mehr ertragen, geschweige die letzte Wagnerische. Mir ging es durch und durch,
daß ich N. so wehgethan, ich hatte keine Ahnung davon gehabt; und so war ich
mit meiner Unbedachtsamkeit daran schuld, daß er die ganze nächste Woche sich
immer schlecht fühlte." (öffentliche Bibliothek der Univ. Basel).
80
GBr III, 617, a resume of the winter in a letter of March 13, 1885. It is not clear
where the experiment" took place or what music was involved, but Zürich is likely,
where Nietzsche had an orchestra and a friendly conductor (Friedrich Hegar)
virtually at his disposal during the month of October 1884. Presumably a part of
the same experience had its literary precipitate in § 240 of Jenseits, whose manuscript
was mostly complete by June 1885. Here Nietzsche's objections are almost balanced
out by the atmospheric evocatipn of what had earlier been his favorite orchestral
number, the prelude to Die Meistersinger. It should be noted however that the
reaction represented to Malwida was private ("ein Brief unter vier Augen"), direct
and unspecific äs to the music involved, the published one diplomatically cautious
and even tactful in getting to the point: "Alles in Allem keine Schönheit, kein Süden,
Nichts von südlicher feiner Helligkeit des Himmels, Nichts von Grazie, kein Tanz,
kaum ein Wille zur Logik;" (KGW VI 2,187—8).
81
See Gurt Janz, "Die 'tödtlicfae Beleidigung"', Nietzsdie-Studien 4 (1975), 263—278.
Janz gives a detailed account (pp. 273 f.) of Nietzsche preparing himself with the
new piano-score of Parsifal, wajting in Tautenburg for a conciliatory signal from
Bayreuth that never eame, See also Arthur Egidi, "Gespräche mit Nietzsche im
Parsifaljahr 1882", Die Musiki (1902), 1892—1899. To Egidi, a pianist and diance
acquaintance in Tautenburg, Nietzsche in the end gave the excuse of poor health for
his f ailure to accompany his sister to Bayreuth.
 Nietasche Y Quest for a New Aesthetic of Music 193

lying rationale for such "exposures" was some basic need to rcassess
periodically his position vis-a-vis Wagaer's music.
When in January 1887 Nietzsche finally heard his first performance
of the prelude to Parsifal (in Monte Carlo), at the beginning of what
appears to have been a new phase of nervous equüibrium, he did not seem
at all troubled by any disagreeable effects or after-effects of this music,
certainly one of the most remote from Nietzsche's ideal of dancing South-
ern Music. He now confidently assumed that he could hygienically
distinguish between the repelient ideological raison d*etre of this music
and its success from a purely aesthetic point of view, But what really in-
fuses his commentary to Köselitz is more related to some sentiment deep
within him than to any feature of the music whidi can be clearly
identified:
Hat Wagner je Etwas besser gemadit? Die allerhödiste psydiologisdie
Bewußtheit und Bestimmtheit in Bezug auf Das, was hier gesagt, aus-
gedrückt, mitgetheilt werden soll, die kürzeste und direkteste Form da-
für, jede Nuance des Gefühls bis aufs Epigrammatische gebracht. Eine
Deutlichkeit der Musik als descriptiver Kunst, bei der man an einen
Schild mit erhabener Arbeit denkt; und, zuletzt, ein sublimes und
außerordentliches Gefühl, Erlebnis, Ereignis der Seele im Grunde der
Musik, das Wagnern die höchste Ehre macht... Ob je ein Maler einen
so schwermuthigen Blick der Liebe gemalt hat, als W. mit den letzten
Accenten seines Vorspiels? —
Even editor Peter Gast admitted finding hiniself at something of a
loss to explain the unexpected encoinium: it did not seem reasonable that
"Blick der Liebe" was raeant to refer to the familiär "Dresden Amen"
(faith-motive) with whidh the concert version of the prelude ends (GBr IV,
490, note to No. 201). It appears to be a particularly glaring example of
the occasional irrelevance of Nietzsche's verbal eiaborations to the specific
composition involved; not, however to the sensations and emotions that
accompanied the experience, whatever their imderlying rationale.
For the attentive reader of the documents it is apparent — even
without the confirmation of £cce bomo — that Nietzsche never made the
final innennost break with the experience "Wagner* and that this fact
continued to color his attitude, to shape his response to Wagner's music to
the very end« There seems to be little room for doubt that the unusujd
and prolonged mtensity of his later pubJic attack on Wagner was a super-

« GBr IV. 277—8. See the parallel claböratlons in tbe * * KGW VIII l, 202L·
^M^n legt aiierdtng* Ucim Hören dieser Musik den Protestant wie ein Mißvcmändniß
!xri Seite: so wk dk Mut k Wagoers in Montccarlo midi daxu bradite» wie JA mdn
leugne« will, audi die *onu gchSrtc ttbr gute Mu&ik (Hayda Berüo?. Brahms Reyers
Sjgard-Ou\ märe) ebeafaüf wie riß MiSvemaftdßiß der Musik bei Seite zu legen."
194 Frederick R, Lovc

ficial reflection of the desperate, but ultimately futile struggle to free him-
self from his own past — and his own present. Certainly most of the
questions raised by Nietzsdie in the course of his covert and then open
campaign against Wagner's art — the problem of the relationship of music
and the drama, of rhythmic ambiguity and the changing conventions of
"melody," of musical structure and Integration, of musical histrionics and
rhetoric, and finally all of these together under the question of decadence
in Western music — are real ones that needed to be asked. That Nietzsdie's
tentative answers are not more useful today is in part a result of our acute
sense of relativism in the history of music. Nietzsdie may have been more
obviously limited by nineteenth Century conventions in this area than in
any other aspect of his work.
That Nietzsche's illness — at least his precarious physical and mental
condition — may have been the final provocation for his break with Wag-
ner and a significant motive for his intellectual Opposition to Wagner's
art (the question remains open to what extent his stamina had been under-
mined by the burdensome pretense of maintaining cordial relations after
Tribschen), need not and should not of itself invalidate the substance of
that Opposition. What remains questionable in Nietzische's case are the
unending speculations in areas where his technical knowledge and analytical
capacities were clearly inadequate, and the unfortunate attempt to extend
the battle to the creative level through the proxy figure of his devoted Pe-
ter Gast. But Wagnerians should find no cause for amusement in this
exercise in fUtility: the human wreckage of a generation of younger talents
scattered about the f eet of the Colossus of Bayreuth is monument in its own
way to Wagner's role in shaping the cultural history of the nineteenth Cen-
tury. At least Nietzsche and Gast recognized, äs thousands did not, that
Wagner's art was the end of a historical development — quite literally the
non plus ultra —, and that something radically different soon had to
follow.