Nietzsche and Music
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"Gott hat uns die Musik gegeben, damit wir erstens, durch sie nach oben geleitet werden.
Die Musik vereint alle Eigenschaften in sich, sie kann erheben, sie kann tändeln, sie kann uns aufheitern, ja sie vermag
mit ihren sanften, wehmütigen Tönen das rohesten Gemüt zu brechen. Aber ihre Hauptbestimmung ist, daß sie
unsre Gedanken auf Höheres leitet, daß sie uns erhebt, sogar erschüttert.
... Auch gewährt die Musik eine angenehme Unterhaltung und bewahrt jeden, der sich dafür interessiert, vor Langeweile.
Man muß alle Menschen, die sie verachten, als geistlose, den Tieren ähnliche Geschöpfe betrachten. Immer sei diese
herrlichste Gabe Gottes meine Begleiterin auf meinem Lebenswege und ich kann mich glücklich preisen, sie liebgewonnen zu haben.
Ewig Dank sei Gott von uns gesungen, der diesen schöen Genuß uns darbietet!" Nietzsche in 1858, at the age of fourteen years
All of his life, Nietzsche loved music--and he even declared
that life without music is an error... Already in his early youth, he learned to play the piano
and he became quite skillful at it. He also continued to play piano for a long time; for example,
it is known that, still in Basel, he liked to play piano four-handed with his best friend,
Franz Overbeck.
Therefore, on this page, in addition to Nietzsche's music itself that you can listen to
or download after clicking on the links below, Nietzsche will speak for himself in letters
and writings that have been selected from his philosopical-poetical works.
Nietzsche's Compositions You will find the texts to the compositions
on this page.
However, with an average size of 200-500 Kb, you should expect your
downloading of the music to take some time. All links that are presented in color can be accessed,
and the music can be played and downloaded. See also the German Music-Site to download other titles!
Symbols of the Ineffable Nietzsche als Komponist [Nietzsche as Composer] - Fritz Schleicher in the "Nürnberger Nachrichten" with respect to a repetition of the concert in Bamberg "Wunder geschehen im internationalen Konzertbetrieb gelegentlich nur, wenn sich bedeutende
Künstler von Repertoirezwängen befreien, wenn sie Rollen und Masken abstreifen und ohne Gala-Gage etwas tun,
was ihnen Spaß macht, etwas Neues ausprobieren, sich auf ein Abenteuer einlassen, dessen Ausgang und Erfolg unsicher sind. Richard Wagner on Nietzsche's "Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht" Christmas 1871, Nietzsche had sent his new compsotion Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht (Reminiscence of a New Year's Eve) for which he had revised and re-shaped older material into a piano piece for four hands (which he played with his friend Overbeck) to Mme. Cosima Wagner. However, this time, he did not visit in person (perhaps weary of any comparison with Wagner's Tribschener Idyl that was lying under the Christmas tree the year before--see Wagner Page/ Tribschen): "Frau Wagner, deren Geburtstag am 25. December ist ... habe ich meine ‚Sylvesternacht‘ gewidmet und bin gespannt, was ich über meine musikalische Arbeit von dort aus zu hören bekomme, da ich noch nie etwas Competentes zu hören bekam." (To Mme Wagner whose birthday is on December 25th, I have dedicated my "Sylvesternacht" and am curious what I will come to hear about my musical work from there, since I have never heard anytying competent from there--To Rohde, Briefwechsel p. 277, about December 20, 1871). Hören Sie einen Ausschnitt aus dieser Komposition für Klavier und Violine! Let Janz report with respect to this (I, 427 f.): "Die Beschenkte reagierte feinfühlig-rücksichtsvoll am
30. Dezember 1871: »Sylvester-Tag soll für die Sylvester-Nacht-Klänge
danken; gemeinsame Eindrücke zur Erinnerung geworden, leuteten durch die
Mitternachtsglocken meinem diesjährigen Geburtstag, und ich sage dem
freundlichen Melomanen Dank!« Erst 15 Jahre später, im November 1887,
gibt sie in einem Brief an Felix Mottl etwas davon frei, was sich in Tribschen
abgespielt hatte : »Jakob Stocker, mein damaliger Diener... blieb beim Abdecken des
Tisches... stehen, hörte aufmerksam zu, wandte sich endlich ab mit den Worten
gt;schint mir nicht gut<. Ich gestehe, daß ich vor Lachen, trotz meiner
damaligen großen Freundschaft, gar nicht weiterspielen konnte.«
Ausführlicher schildert die Szene Hans Richter, der »mit der
Frau Meisterin zusammen die >Silvesterglocken< spielte. Wagner saß
unruhig dabei, knetete sein Barett und ging vor Schluß hinaus ... ich fürchtete
ein Donnerwetter. Aber Jakobs Kritik (die Richter ebenfalls überliefert) hatte es
abgeschwächt; ich fand den Meister bloß in vollem Lachen. >Da verkehrt
man nun schon seit anderthalb Jahren mit dem Menschen, ohne dergleichen zu ahnen; und
nun kommt er so meuchlings, die Partitur im Gewande.« Dennoch durfte Nietzsche bei
seinem nächsten Besuch in Tribschen am 20. Januar 1872 den Eindruck verbessern.
Cosima notiert in ihrem Tagebuch: »Professor Nietzsche, dessen Besuch uns sehr freut.
Viel durchgesprochen; Pläne für künftige Zeiten, Reform der Schule usw.;
er spielt uns seine Komposition sehr schön vor.«"
Naturally, Hans von Bülow did not remain unknown to Nietzsche,
owing to his frequenting Wagner's house--and thus he sent him his "Geburt der Tragödie"
(in 1872). After a visit to Basel--Wagner was already preparing for his departure to Bayreuth--
they saw each other again in Munich, where Hans von Bülow, on the orders of King Ludwig II and
against Wagner's wishes, conducted Tristan und Isolde. In 1874, Nietzsche had also sent his Manfred Meditation to Kapellmeister Friedrich Hegar (see Wagner Page/"Triumphlied"). The latter wrote in his reply, "... ich hoffte immer, dieselbe persönlich zurückbringen und Ihnen bei dieser Gelegenheit sagen zu können, wie sehr mich vieles interessierte, namentlich die Art und Weise, wie Sie der zu Grunde liegenden Stimmung musikalisch Ausdruck zu geben versuchen. Freilich fehlt dem ganzen, was die Gestaltung der musikalischen Ideen anbetrifft, die Erfüllung gewisser architektonischer Bedingungen so, daß mir die Komposition mehr den Eindruck einer stimmungsvollen Improvisation als eines durchdachten Kunstwerks macht." (...I had always hoped to be able to personally return it and to tell you on that occasion how much of it found my interest, particularly the manner in which you try to musically express the basic mood. Of course, the whole is, as far as the execution of musical ideas is concerned, lacking some architectural prerequisites so that the composition makes more of an impression of an improvisation describing a certain mood to me than that of a thought-through composition). (Janz I, 580) Nietzsche on the Music of Bizet and Wagner "Der Fall Wagner" (The Case of Wagner) - Turin Letter of May, 1888 ridendo dicere severum... 1 Yesterday--would you believe it?--I heard Bizet's masterwork for the 20th time. Again, I attended with a gentle devotion; I did not run away, again. This victory over my impatience surprises me. How fulfilling is such a work! One turns into a masterpiece with it.--And, indeed, I appeared to myself, every thime that I heard Carmen, to be more of a philosopher, a better philosopher than I usually appear to myself: having become so patient, so happy, so East-Indian, so sedentary... To sit for five hours: the first stept to sanctity!--May I say that Bize'ts orchestral sound is the only one I can still endure? That other orchestral sound that is now en vogue, the Wagnerian, brutal, artificial, and "innocent" at the same time and, with it, speaking to the senses of the modern soul simultaneously--how disadvantageous is this Wagnerian orchestral sound to me! I call it Scirocco. I break out into unpleasant perspiration. My good weather is over. This music appears perfect to me. It approaches lightly, flexibly, courteously. It is pleasant, it does not perspire. "That which is good is light, everything divine walks on tender feet": the first premise of my aesthetic. This music is vicious, refined, fatalistic: with it, it stays popular--it has the refinement of a race, not that of an individual. It is rich. It is precise. It builds, it organizes, accomplishes its goal: with it, it represents the opposite to the musical polypus, to the "infinite melody"! Has one ever heard more painful, tragic accents on stage?...And how these are achieved! Without grimaces! Without counterfeiting! Without the lie of the grand style!--Finally: This music takes the listener for an intelligent person, for a musician, himself--and in this, it is the opposite to Wagner who, whatever else he was, he was, in any case, the world's most impolite genius (Wagner takes us quasi "as if"--he says one thing so often until one despairs--until one believes it). To repeat it: I become a better man when Bizet speaks to me, also a better musician, a better listener. Can one even still listen better?--I even bury my ears beneath this music, I hear its origin. It appears to me that I am experiencing its creation--I tremble in the face of dangers that accompany some kind of risks, I am delighted with happenstances that Bizet is innocent of.--And, how curious!, basically I do not think of it, or I do not know how much I think of it...since quite different thoughts race through my head at that time... Has one noticed that music frees the mind? lends wings to thoughts? that one becomes a philosopher all the more, the more one becomes a musician?--The grey sky of abstraction appears to be filled with lightning; the light is strong enough for the filigree of things; the great problems are close enough so that one can almost touch them; the world from the vantage point of a mountain top. --I just define the philosophical pathos.--And unexpectedly, answers fall into my lap, a minor hailstorm of ice and wisdom, of solved problems. ... Where am I?--Bizet makes me fertile. Everything good makes me fertile. I have no other gratitude,--I also have no other proof for that which is good. 2 This work, too, redeems; Wagner is not the only "redeemer". With it, one says farewell to the humid North, to all water steam of the Wagnerian ideal. Already the plot saves us from it. It still has Merimee's logic in its passion, the shortest line, the hard necessity; it has, above all, what belongs to the hot climate, the dryness of the air, the limpidezza in the air. Here, the climate is changed in every respect. Here, another sensuality speaks, another sensitivity, another serenity. This music is serene, but not of a French or of a German serenity. Its serenity is African; doom is hovering above it, its happiness is brief, sudden, without pardon. I envy Bizet for it that he has had the courage for this sensitivity that has not yet found expression in refined European music--for this more Southern, this browner, more sun-burnt sensitivity... How good the yellow afternoons of its happiness are for us! We look out with it: have we ever seen a smoother sea?--And how this Moorish dance calmingly speaks to us! How, in its lascivious melancholy, even our insatiability reaches the point of satiety, for once!--Finally love, love that is translated back into nature! Love that, in its means, is war, and its basis the deadly hatred of the genders!--I know of no case where the tragical joke that constitutes the essence of love, expresses itself so strictly, so terribly became a formula, as in the last cry of Don Jose, with which the work closes: »Ja! Ich habe sie getötet, [Yes, I have killed her] - Such a concept of love (the only one that is worthy of the philosopher--) is rare: it distinguishes one work of art among thousands, since, on average, artists proceed in the same manner as the rest of the world, or even worse--they misunderstand love. Wagner has also misunderstood it. They even believe to be selfless in it since they strive for the advantage of another being, often against their own advantage. However, in exchange they want to own the other being. ... Even God makes no exception here. He is far from thinking "What business of yours is it if I love you?"--he becomes vicious when one does not return his love-- L'amour – with this statement, one is right among Gods and humans--est de tous les sentiments le plus égoïste, et par conséquent, lorsqu'il est blessé, le moins généreux. (B. Constant.) 3 Can you already see how much this music improves me?--Il faut méditerraniser la musique: I have the key to this formula (Jenseits von Gut und Böse: II 723). The return to nature, health, serenity, youth, virtue!--And yet, I was one of the most corrupt Wagnerians. ... I was able to take Wagner seriously... Oh, this old magician! what has he not tried to convince us of! The first that his art offers to us is a magnifying glass: one takes a look, one does not dare to believe one's own eyes--everything becomes great, even Wagner, himself becomes great; ... What a smart rattlesnake! All of its life, it has been rattling on to us about devotion, about faith, about purity, with a praise of chastity, it removed itself from the rotten world!--And we believed this rattlesnake... – Yet, you cannot hear what I am saying? You, yourself, prefer Wagner's problem over that of Bizet? I, too, do not underestimate it, it has its magic. The problem of redemption or salvation is, itself, a very worthy problem. About nothing else has Wagner thought as deeply as about redemption and salvation: his opera is the opera of redemption. With him, there is always someone who wants to be saved: sometimes a man, sometimes a maiden--this is his problem.--And how richly he varies his leitmotif! What rare, what deep evasions! Who taught us, if not Wagner, that innocence prefers to save interesting sinners? (as in the case of Tannhäuser). Or that even the "eternal Jew" is saved, settles down, when he gets married? (as in the case of the "Flying Dutchman"). Or that old, spoilt women prefer to be saved by chaste young men (as in Kundry's case). Or that beautiful girls prefer to be saved by a knight who is a Wagnerian? (as in the "Meistersinger"). Or that even married women like to be saved by a knight (as in Isolde's case). Or that "the old God", after he has morally compromised himself in every respect, is finally saved by a free thinker and immoralist? (as in the "Ring"). Admire, particularly, the deep meaning of the latter! Do you understand it? I am--weary--of understanding it... That one can gain still other insights from the works named, I want to rather prove than to dispute. That one can be driven to despair by a Wagnerian ballet--and to virtue! (once again the case of Tannhäuser). That it can have the gravest consequences if one does not go to bed at the right time (once again the case of Lohengrin). That one should never know too precisely who one is married to (for the third time the case of Lohengrin).--Tristan and Isolde glorify the perfect spouse who, in a certain case, has only one question, "but why did you not tell me this sooner? Nothing (is) simpler than that!" The reply: »Das kann ich dir nicht sagen; {I can not tell you that] Lohengrin features a solemn eight-fold explanation of exloring and asking. With this, Wagner (re)presents the Christian concept of "thou shalt and thou must believe". It is a crime against the highest, the most sacred, to be scientific. ... The Flying Dutchman, too, preaches the noble presumption that woman can even settle the most unsteady fellow, to speak with Wagner, to save him. Here, we allow ourselves a question: Going out from the premise that this were true, would it also be desirable? --What becomes of the "eternal Jew" whom a woman adores and ties down? He merely stops being eternal, he marries, he is of no further concern to us.--Translated into reality: the danger to artists, to geniuses--and that is what the "eternal Jews" are--lies in woman: the adoring women are their demise. Almost none of them has enough character not to be spoilt--"saved", when he feels treated like a god--soon, he condescends to woman.--Man is a coward in the face of the eternally feminine: women know that.--In many cases of womanly love, and perhaps particularly in the most famous ones, love is only a refined form of parasitism, a form of nest-building in a strange soul, sometimes even in a strange flesh--oh! how much always at the expense of "the host"!-- One knows Goethe's fate in the moraline-sour, spinsterly Germany. He was always suspicious to Germans; he has had honest admirers amongst Jewish women. Schiller, the "noble" Schiller who hit them left and right with his grand words, he was their hearts' favorite. What did they accuse Goethe of? The "Berg der Venus" (Venus' hill); and that he wrote Venetian epigrams. Already Klopstock preached morality to him; there was a time when Herder, when he spoke of Goethe, preferred to use the word "Priap". Even "Wilhelm Meister" was only considered a sympbol of decline, as "moral decay". For example, Niebuhr was enraged about the "Menagerie vom zahmen Vieh" (the menagery of tame animals) and of the infamous hero in it, who finally breaks out into a lament that Biterolf could have sung: »Nichts macht leicht einen schmerzlicheren Eindruck, als wenn ein großer Geist sich seiner Flügel beraubt und seine Virtuosität in etwas weit Geringerem sucht, indem er dem Höheren entsagt« (nothing makes a more painful impression as easily as when a great mind lets himself be robbed of his wings and seeks his virtuosity in something far lesser in renouncing the higher). ... Above all, however, the "higher spinster" was enraged: all small courts, all kinds of "Wartburgs" in Germany crossed themselves in protection from Goethe.--This story is what Wagner has put into music: He saves Goethe, that is understood; but in such a way that he cunningly takes sides with the "higher spinster". Goethe is saved: a prayer saves him, a higher maiden "pulls him upward"... – What would Goethe has thought of Wagner?--Goethe has once put this question to himself: what was the danger that was hovering over all romanticists: the doom of the romanticists. His reply was: »am Wiederkäuen sittlicher und religiöser Absurditäten zu ersticken« (to suffocate in the regurgitation of moral and reiligous absurdities). Shorter: Parsifal.--To this, the philosopher adds an epilogue. Sanctity--perhaps the last that nation and women still get to see in higher values, the horzion of the ideal for everything what, by nature, is myops. Amongst philosophers, however, as every horizon, a mere case of lack of understanding, a kind of closing the gates before that where their world only begins--their danger, their ideal, their capacity for wishing...Expressed more politely: la philosophie ne suffit pas au grand nombre. Il lui faut la sainteté – 4 – I am telling the story of the "Ring": It belongs here. It, too, is a story of redemption: only that this time it is Wagner who is being saved.--For half of his life, Wagner believed in revolution, as only a Frenchman could have believed in it. He searched for it in the runes of myth, he believed to have found the typical revolutionary in Siegfried.--"Where does all the evil in the world come from?", Wagner asked himself. From "old covenants", he replied, as all revolutionary ideologists do. In plain German: from customs, from laws, moral codes, institutions, from all that on which the old world and the old society rests. "How does one abolish evil in the world? How does one abolish the old society?" Only by declaring war on the "old covements" (tradition, morality). Siegfried does that. He begins early with it, very early: his conception is already a declaration of war on morality-- he is the product of adultery, of incest...not the saga but Wagner is the inventor of this radical trait; in this point, he has corrected the saga... Siegfried continues as he has begun: he only follows his first impulses, he throws all tradition, all fear overboard. What displeases him, he strikes down. He rages against old Gods without reverence. His major endeavor, however, is to emancipate woman--"to save Brünnhilde"...Siegfried and Bruennhilde, the sacrament of free love; the rise of the golden age; the demise of the Gods of the old morality – the evil is abolished ... Wagner’s ship navigated, for quite some time, merrily along this course. No doubt, Wagner was searching for his highest goal on this course. The ship ran onto a cliff. Wagner was stranded. The cliff was Schopenhauer’s philosophy; Wagner was stranded on his contrary view of the world [the Feuerbachian view!]. What hat he put into music? Optimism. Wagner was ashamed. More so since Schopenhauer had coined a malicious description for it – ruthless optimism. He was ashamed once more. He thought about this for a long time, his situation seemed desperate ... Finally, a way out dawned on him: the cliff onto which he ran, what? if he would interpret it as his goal, as the intention behind everything, as the real purpose of his journey? to be stranded here – that was also a goal. Bene navigavi, cum naufragium feci ... And he translated the "Ring" into "Schopenhauerian". Everything goes wrong, eveything is destroyed, the new world is as bad as the old one – the nothing, the Indian Circe is beckoning – Bruennhilde who, according to previous intentions, should have bade farewell with an aria in honor of free love, who was to console the world to wait for a socialist utopia with which everything will "turn out well", she is assigned a different task now. First, she has to study Schopenhauer; she has to render the fourth book of "Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" in verses. Wagner was redeemed ... In all earnestness, this was a redemption. The relief that Wagner has to thank Schopenhauer for, is immeasurable. Only the philosopher of decadence gave the artist of decadence back to himself"; [from the "Nachschrift":] Music as Circe... In this, his last work is a masterpiece. Parsifal will always keep its rank in the art of seduction, as a stroke of genius of seduction... I admire this work, I wish that I had written it, myself; short of this, I understand it... Wagner was never more inspired than in the end. The refinement in the alliance of beauty and disease goes so far here that it virtually casts a shadow over Wagner's earlier art--it appears too bright, too healthy. Do you understand that? Health and brightness as shadows? almost as an inference?... So far, we are already pure fools... There has never been a grreater master of the numb, hieratic frangrances--never has there lived an equal connoisseur of the small infinities, of all that trembles and of all effusiveness, of all feminisms of the "idioticon of happiness"!--Drink, my friends, from the goblets of this art! You will never find a more pleasant way to un-nerve your minds, to forget your manliness under a rose-bush...Oh, this old magician! This Klingsor of all Klingsors! How he, with it, declares war on us! on us, the free spirits! How he aims to please every cowardice of the modern soul with his magic-girl-tunes!--There was never a more deadly hatred of realization!--One has to be a cynic in order not to be tempted here, one as to be able to bite in order not to adore, here! Well, then, old seducer! The cynic warns you--cave canem....
C.P.Janz on Nietzsche's Compositions (Janz, born 1911 in Basel, studied music and was a member of the Basel Symphony Orchestra from 1930 to 1976; further studies: ancient Greek language, philosophy, German and musicology--and he has completely edited Nietzsche's musical works that were left behind.) "Es ist darum hier der Platz, Nietzsches Kompositionen in ihrer Bedeutung zu würdigen – absolut, als Musikstücke, und relativ, in ihrer Stellung im Wesen und Werk Nietzsches. Es wäre natürlich verfehlt, eine »Ehrenrettung« Nietzsches als Komponist anzustreben, dennoch darf festgehalten werden, daß es trotz gewisser, manchmal recht störender kompositionstechnischer Mängel ernstgemeinte und ernstzunehmende Werke sind, die weitab von einer bloßen spielerischen Liebhaberei liegen. Nietzsche bedient sich der Musik genau wie der Sprache: zur Bewältigung und Übermittlung geistiger und seelischer Gehalte, sie ist ihm Mittel der Kommunikation, und dabei gelingen ihm einige sogar sehr ansprechende Stücke. Die kompositionstechnischen Mängel sind die bedauerlichen Reste eines nicht systematisch durchgeführten autodidaktischen Studiums. Daß man es auch in der Musik bei zähem Fleiß mit autodidaktischem Lehrgang zu etwas bringen kann, haben seine ungefähr zeitgenössischen russischen, im sogenannten »Petersburger mächtigen Häuflein« zusammengeschlossenen Komponisten (Cui, Glinka, Balakirew, Mussorgskij, Borodin, Rimskij-Korsakow) bewiesen. Und Nietzsche bewies es für das Gebiet der Philosophie, in der er ebenfalls Autodidakt war. Daß er dabei als Philosoph die ungleich größere Potenz darstellt denn als Musiker, bleibt natürlich außer Frage. Er hat aber auch in der Musik an Tiefe und Prägnanz des Ausdrucks dennoch manchen seiner »zünftigen« musikalischen Zeitgenossen mindestens erreicht, wobei es ein schwacher Trost bleibt, daß auch diese als zu wenig bedeutend neben einem Brahms und Schumann unserem Bewußtsein entschwunden sind. Jenseits ihrer Mängel sind die Kompositionen und Kompositionsversuche Nietzsches aber von besonderem und hohem Wert für die Erhellung seines Grundwesens, das sich wirklich wie er es im Brief sagt – offenbart, und zwar in seinen einzelnen Facetten. Mit den ersten, meist noch ungeschickten Versuchen unternimmt es der 10-14jährige Knabe, das Handwerkliche wie Notation, Satztechnik und Harmonik in die Hand zu bekommen. Er erhält Klavierunterricht und lernt sogar sinfonische Werke in der Transkription für Klavier kennen. So bleibt auch in seinen Kompositionsversuchen alles vom Klavier her gedacht. Als 12 bis 14jährigem werden ihm nun dazu die Oratorienaufführungen im Naumburger Dom zum Erlebnis. Das Religiöse wird zum ästhetischen Genuß, was seiner schwärmerischen Religiosität besser entspricht als ein echter Glaube. Er komponiert nun auch Messe, Motetten, ein Miserere und schließlich Teile zu einem Weihnachts-Oratorium. Alle diese Werkansätze sind als gescheitert anzusehen. Es ist aber zu fragen, ob sie nur am kompositionstechnischen Unvermögen gescheitert sind oder nicht vielmehr auch von der Sache her. ... Nicht ganz 17jährig (Sommer 1861) konvertiert er, nur wenige Monate nach der Konfirmation, Teile aus dem Weihnachtsoratorium zu einer »weltlichen« Klavierfantasie (>Schmerz ist der Grundton der Natur<), um sich dann deskriptiver Musik in einer >Ermanarich-Symphonie< zuzuwenden. Rasch erkennt er die engen Grenzen und Möglichkeiten bildhaft schildernder Musik. Es ist ja gerade die Überlegenheit der Musik gegenüber den anderen Künsten, daß sie vom konkreten Einzelfall wegführt, ohne dabei »abstrakt« zu werden. Zum >Ermanarich< verfaßt er noch ein detailliertes Programm der Szenerie und Handlung Programme zu späteren Kompositionen geben nur noch Hinweise auf allgemeine Bewegungen oder seelische Verfassungen, Stimmungen. Der Versuch mit deskriptiver Musik mußte von der Sache her scheitern, verdarb die musikalisch genuine Form, aber es gelang ihm dennoch ein harmonisch kühnes Stück. Darauf folgt eine Periode der Kleinformen, die in seiner Zeit beliebten »Albumblätter« (bei Mendelssohn »Lieder ohne Worte«) und Lieder, also Lyrik. Hier gibt er als Komponist sein Bestes. Schon C. A. Bernoulli hat nachdrücklich auf den lyrischen Grundzug im philosophischen Werk Nietzsches hingewiesen, noch ohne den kräftigsten Beweis, die lyrischen Kompositionen, zur Hand zu haben. Nach längerer Pause greift Nietzsche wieder die Großform der mehrteiligen Fantasie auf unter dem Obergedanken »Freundschaft«. Die Musik gerät ihm hier ebenso ins Pathetische wie seine Freundesbriefe, die Fantasien werden formlos, ja unförmig. Nietzsche scheitert in den »Freundschafts«-Kompositionen (Monodie, Manfred, Nachklang, Hymnus) genau so wie in den Freundschaften selber. Es stellt sich hier die ähnliche Frage wie beim Religiösen: versuchte er seine Unfähigkeit zur echten Freundschaft auf dem Umweg über die Ästhetik zu überwinden? In so verschiedene Phasen die Kompositionstätigkeit aufteilbar scheint, ein Grundzug hält alles, von den ersten Versuchen bis zum »Hymnus« zusammen: beinahe alle Kompositionen hat Nietzsche zu Geschenkzwecken oder Widmungen benutzt, die meisten sind sogar nur darum entstanden. Es sind ganz persönlich gerichtete Kundgebungen seiner Neigung und stehen darum in ihrem Wesen dem Brief näher als dem philosophischen Werk; sie haben einen durch die Art der Musik gegebenen gehobenen Aussagewert in einer durchaus persönlichen Weise. Obwohl sich Stileinflüsse verschiedener Komponisten aufzeigen lassen, wie Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, so eignet ihnen doch ein spezifischer Nietzschescher Zug der Melancholie. Auffallend ist das völlige Fehlen Wagnerscher Einwirkung (bis auf den »Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht«). Die Dämonie und Gefühlsmächtigkeit Wagners blieb dem Musiker Nietzsche fremd, als Musiker war er nie »Wagnerianer«. In this text, Janz expresses that it is now the right time to evaluate Nietzsche's compositions as to their importance: namely absolutely, as musical works, and relatively, in their position in the essence and work of Nietzsche. Janz contends that it might be a misguided idea to aim at saving Nietzsche's "honor" as a composer; however, he admits that, in spite of all compositional imperfections, these works should be considered as serious and seriously-meant works that are far-removed from a merely playful dilletantism. Nietzsche uses music as he uses language, for the coming-to-terms with and for the conveying of mental and spiritual content. According to Janz, for Nietzsche, music is a means of communication, and he admits that there are even a few quite pleasing pieces. He describes the compositional deficiencies as the result of a non-systematic process of self-study and mentions that some of Nietzsche's approximate contemporaries such as the Petersburg composers Cui, Glinka, Balakireff, Mussorgskij, Borodin and Rimskij-Korsakoff, have come a long way in their musical self-studies. He contents that Nietzsche proved the same as philosopher since he was also self-taught in that subject and that his potential as philosopher is immensely greater than that as a musician, which is undeniable. However, so Janz, Nietzsche was at least, at times, able to reach his "professional" musical counterparts in the depth and strength of his musical expression, for this there is no consolation since this, due to its minor importqance, has escaped our awareness in the face of such great counterparts as Brahms and Schumann. Janz continues by stating that Nietzsche's compsotiions and compositional attempts, beyond their deficiencies, are of particular importance in the study of his essence that revealed--as he says, in his letters--and that in its different facets. Janz elaborates on how Nietzsche, already at the age of 10 - 14, tried to get a handle on such tasks as musical notation, technique of musical semantics and harmonics, how he received piano lessons and also became acquainted with piano reductions of symphonic works, which found its reflection of his conceptualizing everything in his compositional attempts from the piano; that, as a 12 to 14-year-old, he heard Oratorios in the Naumburg cathedral, that, however, for him, the religious became an aesthetic enjoyment which facilitated his religious enthusiasm rather than evoking his faith, which was followed by his attempts at composing a mass, motets, a "Miserere" and also a Christmas Oratorio, in all of which he, however, failed. Janz raises the question as to whether this failure was due to his lack of compositional skills or due to the nature of the subject. Janz further reports that Nietzsche, in the summer of 1861, when he was not quite 17 years old, converted his Christmas Oratorio into a "profane" piano fantasy ("Schmerz ist der Grundton der Natur" [Pain is the basic mood of nature]) and then turned to descriptive music in his "Ermanarich" Symphony, whereby he soon recognized his limits of expression in descriptive music due to music's superiority over the other art forms in its leading away from concrete cases without becoming abstract in the process. For the "Ermanarich", so Janz, Nietzsche still wrote a detailed program of the scenery and plot, and that (his) programs to later compositions only contained hints at the general mood or emotional state(s). His attempt at descriptive music had to fail, contends Janz, due to its character and that it spoiled the genuine musical form, but that he still produced a harmoniously daring piece. This was followed by a period of smaller musical forms such as the "Albumblätter" of the time (as, for example, Mendelssohn's "Lieder ohne Worte") and "lieder", thus the lyrical, and that here, Nietzsche gave his best as a composer. Janz continues by pointing out that already C.A. Bernoully had explicitly mentioned the basically lyrical tenor of Nietzsche's philosophical work, without being able to look at the strongest proof of this, namely at Nietzsche's lyrical compositions. After some time, so Janz, Nietzsche returned to the greater musical forms with his fantasy on "friendship", in which the music turns as much into pathos as his letters to his friends and that his fantasies are lacking in form, that they are form-less. Janz even goes as far as contending that Neitzsche failed in his "friendship" compositions (Monodie, Manfred, Nachklang, Hymn) as much as he failed in friendship, and raises the question as to whether Nietzsche tried, as in sacred music, to overcome his inability for real friendship via the detour of aesthetics. Even if, according to Janz, the compositional phases of Nietzsche are as varied as they are, they still contain one basic common denominator: Nietzsche had written all of these for the purpose of giving them away as presents or for dedicating them to someone and that they, as quite personal means of expression, are closer related to hsi letters than to his philosophical work and that they, due to music's heightened capacity of expression, have quite some personal significance. Even though there can be observed stylistic influences such as of Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, they all share a specific Nietzschean trait of melancholy and do not show any Wagnerian influence (with the execption of the "Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht"). The demonic emotional power of Wagner remained alien to Nietzsche the musician; as a musician, he was never a "Wagnerian".
Nietzsche as Composer - a Lecture On the weekend of October 15 to 17, 2000, I held a lecture at a seminar of the Gesellschaft für kritische Philosophie in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Nietzsche's death that took place at Kottenheide. In my lecture, I once again summarized the topic discussed in this page and also presented further important facts and comments; this lecture is also presented here, and in it, you will find a further version of the Lebensgebet by Lou Salomé with a detailed comparison of the text, in the version for Alto and Piano, as Nietzsche had ultimately set it to music. In spite of some repetitions with respect to the content of the above text, I think that you will find this reading material useful. It can be accessed via the following link:
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