The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms.
when it becomes conscious: for by becoming conscious it makes itself
feeble. If there were any signs that in spite of the universal character
of European decadence there was still a modicum of health, still an
instinctive premonition of what is harmful and dangerous, residing in the
German soul, then it would be precisely this blunt resistance to Wagner
which I should least like to see underrated. It does us honour, it gives
us some reason to hope: France no longer has such an amount of health at
her disposal. The Germans, these _loiterers par excellence_, as history
shows, are to-day the most backward among the civilised nations of Europe;
this has its advantages,—for they are thus relatively the youngest.
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. It is only quite
recently that the Germans have overcome a sort of dread of him,—the desire
to be rid of him occurred to them again and again.(12) Does anybody
remember a very curious occurrence in which, quite unexpectedly towards
the end, this old feeling once more manifested itself? It happened at
Wagner’s funeral. The first Wagner Society, the one in Munich, laid a
wreath on his grave with this inscription, which immediately became
famous: “Salvation to the Saviour!” Everybody admired the lofty
inspiration which had dictated this inscription, as also the taste which
seemed to be the privilege of the followers of Wagner. Many also, however
(it was singular enough), made this slight alteration in it: “Salvation
_from_ the Saviour”—People began to breathe again—
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. Let us try to
estimate the influence of this worship upon culture. Whom did this
movement press to the front? What did it make ever more and more
pre-eminent?—In the first place the layman’s arrogance, the arrogance of
the art-maniac. Now these people are organising societies, they wish to
make their taste prevail, they even wish to pose as judges _in rebus
musicis et musicantibus_. Secondly: an ever increasing indifference
towards severe, noble and conscientious schooling in the service of art,
and in its place the belief in genius, or in plain English, cheeky
dilettantism (—the formula for this is to be found in the
_Mastersingers_). Thirdly, and this is the worst of all: _Theatrocracy_—,
the craziness of a belief in the pre-eminence of the theatre, in the right
of the theatre to rule supreme over the arts, over Art in general.… But
this should be shouted into the face of Wagnerites a hundred times over:
that the theatre is something lower than art, something secondary,
something coarsened, above all something suitably distorted and falsified
for the mob. In this respect Wagner altered nothing: Bayreuth is grand
Opera—and not even good opera.… The stage is a form of Demolatry in the
realm of taste, the stage is an insurrection of the mob, a _plébiscite_
against good taste.… The case of Wagner proves this fact: he captivated
the masses—he depraved taste, he even perverted our taste for opera!—
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. What has
Wagner-worship made out of spirit? Does Wagner liberate the spirit? To him
belong that ambiguity and equivocation and all other qualities which can
convince the uncertain without making them conscious of why they have been
convinced. In this sense Wagner is a seducer on a grand scale. There is
nothing exhausted, nothing effete, nothing dangerous to life, nothing that
slanders the world in the realm of spirit, which has not secretly found
shelter in his art, he conceals the blackest obscurantism in the luminous
orbs of the ideal. He flatters every nihilistic (Buddhistic) instinct and
togs it out in music; he flatters every form of Christianity, every
religious expression of decadence. He that hath ears to hear let him hear:
everything that has ever grown out of the soil of impoverished life, the
whole counterfeit coinage of the transcendental and of a Beyond found its
most sublime advocate in Wagner’s art, not in formulæ (Wagner is too
clever to use formulæ), but in the persuasion of the senses which in their
turn makes the spirit weary and morbid. Music in the form of Circe … in
this respect his last work is his greatest masterpiece. In the art of
seduction “Parsifal” will for ever maintain its rank as a stroke of
genius.… I admire this work. I would fain have composed it myself. Wagner
was never better inspired than towards the end. The subtlety with which
beauty and disease are united here, reaches such a height, that it casts
so to speak a shadow upon all Wagner’s earlier achievements: it seems too
bright, too healthy. Do ye understand this? Health and brightness acting
like a shadow? Almost like an objection?… To this extent are we already
pure fools.… Never was there a greater Master in heavy hieratic
perfumes—Never on earth has there been such a connoisseur of paltry
infinities, of all that thrills, of extravagant excesses, of all the
feminism from out the vocabulary of happiness! My friends, do but drink
the philtres of this art! Nowhere will ye find a more pleasant method of
enervating your spirit, of forgetting your manliness in the shade of a
rosebush.… Ah, this old magician, mightiest of Klingsors; how he wages war
against us with his art, against us free spirits! How he appeals to every
form of cowardice of the modern soul with his charming girlish notes!
There never was such a _mortal hatred_ of knowledge! One must be a very
cynic in order to resist seduction here. One must be able to bite in order
to resist worshipping at this shrine. Very well, old seducer! The cynic
cautions you—_cave canem_.…
One pays dearly for having been a follower of Wagner. I contemplate the
youthlets who have long been exposed to his infection. The first
relatively innocuous effect of it is the corruption of their taste. Wagner
acts like chronic recourse to the bottle. He stultifies, he befouls the
stomach. His specific effect: degeneration of the feeling for rhythm. What
the Wagnerite calls rhythmical is what I call, to use a Greek metaphor,
“stirring a swamp.” Much more dangerous than all this, however, is the
corruption of ideas. The youthlet becomes a moon-calf, an “idealist”. He
stands above science, and in this respect he has reached the master’s
heights. On the other hand, he assumes the airs of a philosopher, he
writes for the _Bayreuth Journal_; he solves all problems in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Master. But the most ghastly thing of
all is the deterioration of the nerves. Let any one wander through a large
city at night, in all directions he will hear people doing violence to
instruments with solemn rage and fury, a wild uproar breaks out at
intervals. What is happening? It is the disciples of Wagner in the act of
worshipping him.… Bayreuth is another word for a Hydro. A typical telegram
from Bayreuth would read _bereits bereut_ (I already repent). Wagner is
bad for young men; he is fatal for women. What medically speaking is a
female Wagnerite? It seems to me that a doctor could not be too serious in
putting this alternative of conscience to young women; either one thing or
the other. But they have already made their choice. You cannot serve two
Masters when one of these is Wagner. Wagner redeemed woman; and in return
woman built Bayreuth for him. Every sacrifice, every surrender: there was
nothing that they were not prepared to give him. Woman impoverishes
herself in favour of the Master, she becomes quite touching, she stands
naked before him. The female Wagnerite, the most attractive equivocality
that exists to-day: she is the incarnation of Wagner’s cause: his cause
triumphs with her as its symbol.… Ah, this old robber! He robs our young
men: he even robs our women as well, and drags them to his cell.… Ah, this
old Minotaur! What has he not already cost us? Every year processions of
the finest young men and maidens are led into his labyrinth that he may
swallow them up, every year the whole of Europe cries out “Away to Crete!
Away to Crete!”.…
Second Postscript
It seems to me that my letter is open to some misunderstanding. On certain
faces I see the expression of gratitude; I even hear modest but merry
laughter. I prefer to be understood here as in other things. But since a
certain animal, _the worm_ of Empire, the famous _Rhinoxera_, has become
lodged in the vineyards of the German spirit, nobody any longer
understands a word I say. The _Kreus-Zeitung_ has brought this home to me,
not to speak of the _Litterarisches Centralblatt_. I have given the
Germans the deepest books that they have ever possessed—a sufficient
reason for their not having understood a word of them.… If in this essay I
declare war against Wagner—and incidentally against a certain form of
German taste, if I seem to use strong language about the cretinism of
Bayreuth, it must not be supposed that I am in the least anxious to
glorify any other musician. Other musicians are not to be considered by
the side of Wagner. Things are generally bad. Decay is universal. Disease
lies at the very root of things. If Wagner’s name represents the ruin of
music, just as Bernini’s stands for the ruin of sculpture, he is not on
that account its cause. All he did was to accelerate the fall,—though we
are quite prepared to admit that he did it in a way which makes one recoil
with horror from this almost instantaneous decline and fall to the depths.
He possessed the ingenuousness of decadence: this constituted his
superiority. He believed in it. He did not halt before any of its logical
consequences. The others hesitated—that is their distinction. They have no
other. What is common to both Wagner and “the others” consists in this:
the decline of all organising power, the abuse of traditional means,
without the capacity or the aim that would justify this. The counterfeit
imitation of grand forms, for which nobody nowadays is strong, proud,
self-reliant and healthy enough, excessive vitality in small details;
passion at all costs; refinement as an expression of impoverished life,
ever more nerves in the place of muscle. I know only one musician who
to-day would be able to compose an overture as an organic whole: and
nobody else knows him.(13) He who is famous now, does not write better
music than Wagner, but only less characteristic, less definite music:—less
definite, because half measures, even in decadence, cannot stand by the
side of completeness. But Wagner was complete, Wagner represented thorough
corruption, Wagner has had the courage, the will, and the conviction for
corruption. What does Johannes Brahms matter?… It was his good fortune to
be misunderstood by Germany; he was taken to be an antagonist of
Wagner—people required an antagonist!—But he did not write necessary
music, above all he wrote too much music!—When one is not rich one should
at least have enough pride to be poor!… The sympathy which here and there
was meted out to Brahms, apart from party interests and party
misunderstandings, was for a long time a riddle to me, until one day
through an accident, almost, I discovered that he affected a particular
type of man. He has the melancholy of impotence. His creations are not the
result of plenitude, he thirsts after abundance. Apart from what he
plagiarises, from what he borrows from ancient or exotically modern
styles—he is a master in the art of copying,—there remains as his most
individual quality a _longing_.… And this is what the dissatisfied of all
kinds, and all those who yearn, divine in him. He is much too little of a
personality, too little of a central figure.… The “impersonal,” those who
are not self-centred, love him for this. He is especially the musician of
a species of dissatisfied women. Fifty steps further on, and we find the