4. wagner and nietzsche on the threshold of the twentieth century

8/4/2019 4. Wagner and Nietzsche on the Threshold of the Twentieth Century

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Wagner and Nietzsche: On the Threshold of the Twentieth CenturyAuthor(s): Gary ZabelSource: The Musical Times, Vol. 131, No. 1770 (Aug., 1990), pp. 407-409Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/966617 .

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Wagner a n d Nietzsche: o n t h e thresholdo f t h e TwentiethCenturyGaryZabelOver the past 100 years, the relationship betweenWagner and Nietzsche has excited considerable inter-est, predominantly from a psychological point of view.This is not surprising, given the fact that the intense andultimately tormented association between these twocreative innovators had unmistakable oedipal over-tones.' To begin with, Wagner was born in the sameyear as Nietzsche's father, who had died whenNietzsche was four. He was therefore biographicallysuited to play a central role in the younger man'semotional development. Nietzsche had first fallenunder the spell of Wagner's music when, as a 16-year-old boy, he and two friends purchased and performedthe piano arrangement of Tristanund Isolde.Thus he wasalready inwardly committed to Wagner's work whenintroduced to the composer by a mutual friend eightyears later. A discussion about Schopenhauer, whosewritings had deeply influenced both men, forged abond between the two even at this initial encounter.During the following years, Nietzsche became a fre-quent visitor to Wagner's home, indeed almost amember of his household. It was there that he alsobecame attached to Wagner's wife Cosima, whosesophistication he found impressive. Wagner's artisticreputation in Germany was not yet completely secure,and so he was happy to find a public advocate in theyoung professor of classical philology. In that capacity,Nietzsche wrote an 'Appeal to the German Nation' atthe time of the first Wagner festival at Bayreuth;followed that appeal with a more elaborate aestheticadvocacy in the fourth of his UntimelyMeditations;andconceived of his first book, The Birthof Tragedy,as anextended dialogue with the composer. The older man,however, proved unable to recognize the youngerman's independent talents, and soon Nietzsche beganto chafe under Wagner's domination. When Wagnerinsisted that he join him at Bayreuth, Nietzsche deve-loped severe headaches and vomiting, clearly psycho-genic symptoms. His mental anguish persisted until hewas finally able to reject Wagnerian aesthetic doctrine.In the Case of Wagnerand Nietzsche ContraWagner,hesymbolically murdered the father figure who had kepthim from pursuing his own unique path. Nietzsche'soedipal drama was completed when he wrote CosimaWagner a love letter after insanity had broken down hisinhibitions.Of course, the story of the relationship betweenWagner and Nietzsche would be of merely clinicalinterest were it not for the fact that it was also thevehicle of an important cultural dispute. The manifoldtensions that characterised their association attain adeeper and unitary significance when we recognise thatthe two emotionally entangled opponents wereengaged in a struggle to determine the identity of the

European avant-garde. This thesis may seem contro-versial, since it was not until the early decades of the20th century that the avant-garde decisively emergedin the context of new anti-traditionalist movements inthe arts. Expressionism, Dadaism, Futurism, and so on,first emblazoned upon the public consciousness animage of the artist as someone who breaks free of rulingconventions, someone who ventures ahead of contem-poraries into uncharted and dangerous territory. But inspite of its definitive 20th-century establishment, thisavant-garde image was anticipated by Wagner andNietzsche through their common emphasis on theprefigurative capacities of art. One of Wagner's earlyaesthetic treatises was titled, 'The Art Work of theFuture'; through the character of Zarathustra,Nietzsche insisted that his true audience had not yetbeen born. For both men, the value of art was not to befound in the dominant function that they believed itperformed in contemporary society: that of divertingthe public's attention from the emptiness of modernlife. Art's value lay, rather, in its ability to reject thevacuous present that required such diversion, in thename of an almost prophetic invocation of a radicallydifferent future. The real significance of Wagner's andNietzsche's tortured relationship lies in the fact thatthey were fated to develop this rudimentary avant-garde conception in fundamentally antagonisticdirections.

Wagner's reflections on the meaning of art date fromthe time of his participation in the Dresden Uprising of1848-49. The turmoil in Dresden was part of a wave ofrevolution that engulfed much of continental Europe,and that, as Marx pointed out, marked the emergence ofthe working class as an independent actor on theworld-historical scene. Although Wagner was defin-itely a member of the radical socialist wing of therevolutionary movement (he met and plotted fre-quently with the anarchist leader Bakunin), the motivesbehind his activism were primarily aesthetic and onlysecondarily political. He saw the Revolution as aquasi-natural eruption, a 'volcano', which would sweepaway the obstacles preventing the development of avital and compelling form of art. According to him,these obstacles were rooted in the guiding principle ofmodern civilization, that of the competitive drive toaccumulate wealth. As the power of money asserted itsunbridled dominance over creative expression, art wasreduced to a form of entertainment designed to providedistraction for individuals caught up in a high-pressured life. The transformation of art into a com-modity for sale at an appropriate price emptied it of anysignificant content. Moreover, in Wagner's eyes, Chris-tian religious dogma, especially in its Protestant form,contributed to the social degradation of aesthetic ex-perience. By counselling the renunciation of instinctualneeds, the postponement of gratification, Christianity1See Walter Kaufman's discussion in Nietzsche:Philosopher,Psychologist,Antichrist Princeton, 1974), pp.'30-41.

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supported the process of accumulating capital that layat the heart of the modern era. But in so doing, itcondemned the experience of sensuous enjoyment thatwas the life-blood of art. In Wagner's view, then,Christian-capitalist society was intrinsically hostile toaesthetic purposes. Art could be liberated only bymeans of the destruction of that society.Like many proponents of revolutionary change,Wagner appealed to the past in an attempt to provideguidance for the future. While he regarded contempor-ary opera as the prime example of cultural decadence,he took ancient Greek tragedy as his model of genuineart.Although the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocleswere the direct products of individual poets, they werethe indirect creations, according to Wagner, of theAthenian people as a whole. For they were based onmythical traditions, and these traditions were com-munal in origin. Now, the key to Wagner's earlyaesthetic theory undoubtedly lies in his conception ofthe role that mythos plays in generating socialsolidarity. According to his formulation, through thecreation and reception of myth in feasts, celebrations,and rituals, an historical community - a Volk- renewsits collective substance by reminding its members oftheir descent from common ancestors. By means of thepresentation of dramatic material involving the godsand heroes, 'in whose being [the Greeks] felt them-selves included as one common whole'2, tragic theatremerely substituted an artistic regeneration of fellow-ship for a religious one. In Wagner's view, the imme-diate enemies of art - the cult of monetary accumulationand the ascetic condemnation of sensuality - are twodifferent expressions of a more basic condition. Withthe decline of the ancient world, society fragmentedinto a joyless congeries of isolated and antagonisticindividuals. Especially in the modern period, it nolonger knows what real art involves because it is acommunity without solidarity, a society withoutmyth.Wagner gave his support to the revolutionary move-ment because he believed that it would subvert thedomination of commercial values, and restore art to itsancient role of renewing the folk-community. It is truethat he sought to expand this role in a humanisticdirection. The modern artist could no longer be limitedto the narrow sphere of a particular racial group; histask instead was to address his creations to humanity asa whole. This universalist appeal was precisely whatwould distinguish the 'art work of the future' from itsnarrower Greek counterpart. But from the beginning,Wagner's humanism was undermined by a morepowerful German nationalism. His goal was to use art asa hammer for forging an identity capable of binding thedisparate principalities of Germany into a singlenational formation. This is why he drew the mythicalmaterial for his music dramas exclusively from Teutonicand Scandinavian legends and sagas. And it is also whyhis idea of the folk-community ultimately retained arestrictive racial connotation; it was defined as much bywhat it excluded as by what it encompassed. In hisnotorious article of 1850, Judaism in Music, Wagnerportrayed Jews as a 'splintered, soilless stock'3, incap-able of contributing to the artistic life of the Germannation. More radically, he went on to deny that theyhad the ability to participate in any national culture atall. At the extreme limit of his anti-Semitic reasoning, he

identified Jews with the very principle of monetarygreed that was responsible for the estrangement of artfrom its community-creating function.Wagner framed his own aesthetic programme inrelation to his general reflections on the social signifi-cance of art. In particular, his conception of the musicdrama as a Gesamtkunstwerk,n integrated work of art,was meant to oppose the fragmentation of humanfunctions that was antithetical to a unified Volk. Bysuspending its internal division of labour, art was toproject the image of a community in which individualdistinctions had been overcome. The differencesbetween music, poetry, and theatre - even painting (ofscenery) and sculpture (of physical gestures) - wouldbe effaced in the music drama, just as the isolatedmonads of contemporary society would be dissolved inthe new German nation. It is ironic that, by generalconsensus, Wagner's real aesthetic achievement lies inhis compositions, since his notion of the music dramasubordinated music to the more important activity ofdeveloping dramatic ideas. But even when consideredby itself, the music faithfully reflects his generalaesthetic purposes. Elevation of the orchestra to astatus equal to that of the voices, the continuousgeneration of so-called 'infinite melody', the use ofdazzling blocks of orchestral colour, and the centralsignificance of the leitmotive all have a single goal: thatof inundating the audience with music, of collectivisingits members by enticing them to lose themselves in theflood of oceanic feeling.Wagner's later rejection of his youthful revolutionaryenthusiasm led him to reinterpret his assault againstthe principle of individuation in the context of Scho-penhauer's philosophy. He now equated the sacrifice ofindividuality with an act of renunciation in which thewill to live is negated along with the pain that inevi-tably attends it. In his original scenario for the Ring,Wagner had conceived of Siegfried as a revolutionaryhero who establishes a new and glorified image ofhumankind on the ruins of Wotan's ancien regime.However, in the final version of the music drama, thechain of guilt-laden action leads, not to the revolution-ary reconstruction of the world, but to its sheer annihi-lation; the burning of Valhalla is the prelude to nothingmore than an orchestral suggestion of spiritual tran-quility. In his final work, Parsifal,Wagner abandoned hisprevious critique of Christianity, and presented aChristianized version of this message of renunciation.Still, his ultimate embrace of redemptive nothingnessdid not cause him to relinquish his efforts to contributeto the renewal of the German nation. It was preciselythe confluence of nationalism and nihilism at Bayreuththat finally motivated Nietzsche to break with hismentor.

The break, however, was prefigured even inNietzsche's most Wagnerian book, The Birthof Tragedy.In that treatise, he named Dionysus as the god whopresided over the origin of Greek tragic drama, as wellas the recent history of German music. According to thelegend, Dionysus, the son of Zeus with a mortal womanSemele, was persecuted by Zeus' wife Hera. She firstdismembered the illegitimate child, and then, after hismiraculous reconstitution, drove him into insanity.After inventing wine on Mount Nysa, Dionysus spreadthe gift of intoxication while wandering through NorthAfrica and Asia Minor, accompanied by a wild band of

2Wagner n Music and Drama(New York, 1964), p.81. 3Ibid,p.52.408


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Satyrs and Maenads. For Nietzsche, both the dismem-berment of Dionysus, and his association with wilddrunkenness, represent a shattering of the principle ofindividuation that was linked in the Greek mind withthe god Apollo. Through intoxication, dance, and, mostimportant of all, the playing of music based on 'theheart-shaking power of tone, the uniform stream ofmelody, the incomparable resources of harmony'4, theparticipants in the Dionysian mystery cults overcametheir fragmentation into separate individuals, and sankback into the original oneness of nature. In the develop-ment of Attic tragedy, the mystery cult was trans-formed into the dramatic chorus, and the myth ofDionysus's dismemberment was reenacted in the fatethat befell the tragic hero. By contemplating the hero'sdestruction, the audience learned that everything thatexists is destined to perish, that the most elevatedhuman achievements ultimately come to nothing. But,according to Nietzsche, such knowledge made a higherform of delight possible. Tragedy taught an aestheticjoy in the game that reality plays with itself in creating,shattering and rebuilding the teeming realm of indi-vidual forms. 'The world', Nietzsche wrote, 'can only bejustified as an aesthetic phenomenon'. Its sole point liesin the exuberant display of appearances that it involves,the spectacle of their creation and destruction. He wenton to argue that contemporary music as well as ancienttragedy expressed this insight. 'The delight created bytragic myth has the same origin as the delight disso-nance in music creates. The primal Dionysian delight,experienced even in the presence of pain, is the sourcecommon to both'.5The Birthof Tragedy hared with Wagner's aestheticessays an attempt to enlist the forces of myth inopposition to the inner poverty of the modern era. Still,their basic messages diverged. Wagner preached anegation of the will to live based on the recognition ofits ultimate futility; Nietzsche recommended an affir-mation of existence as a game in which destruction isthe price of creation. Nietzsche's subsequent criticismsof Wagner stem from this early, not completely con-scious, divergence. They all involve the judgement thatthe composer, finally, was no devotee of Dionysus; hisgods instead were nihilism, decadence, and resentiment.Nietzsche developed this assessment by means of a sortof clinical analysis of Wagner's artistic style. Accordingto him, Wagner was not actually a musician at all, but adramatist, an actor, a genius of the stage, a mime. Hismusic was merely a form of theatrical rhetoric, a meansof underscoring gestures and suggesting psychologicalmotives. This characterisation did not really depart, inany fundamental respect, from the claims that Wagnerhimself had made about his work. But Nietzsche wentfurther in interpreting Wagnerian theatricality asthe symptom of a neurotic condition. The secret ofWagner's art consisted in the fact that it was theproduct of an hysteric. The proof of this lay in 'theconvulsive nature of his affects, his overexcited sensi-bility, his taste that required ever stronger spices, hisinstability which he dressed up as principles, not leastof all the choice of his heroes and heroines - ... (apathological gallery)'.6According to Nietzsche, Wagnersucceeded in creating a powerful public art from hisneurosis because the sickness was itself an expression

of the dominant modern condition; it was a symptom ofrevenge against life. This correspondence betweenprivate neurosis and public disorder is what lent apolitical dimension to Wagner's nihilism. His his-trionics were capable of manipulating the music dramaaudience because they touched a common nerve. As wehave seen, the purpose of such manipulation was tocreate a new national community, or in Nietzsche's lessflattering language, a 'herd'. But as .the anti-Semitismthat was rampant at Bayreuth demonstrated, a nihilisticspirit of revenge lay behind the transformation of theWagnerian public into an internally united butoutwardly antagonistic Volk.Jews would be the first,but not the only victims of that spirit. In an eerilyprescient aphorism, Nietzsche wrote: 'It is full ofprofound significance that the arrival of Wagner coin-cides in time with the arrival of the "Reich"'...Wagnerian conductors in particular are worthy of anage that posterity will call one day . . theclassicalageofwar'.7Nietzsche knew where the attempt to harness mythin the service of the modern nation-state was heading.In Wagner, he detected an unholy alliance between theartistic invocation of archaic experiences and the poli-tical will to annihilation. Half a century later, thatalliance was to lead one branch of the avant-garde intothe arms of the fascist movement. F. T. Marinetti, EzraPound, Wyndham Lewis and Albert Speer are thespiritual grandchildren of Wagner. Nietzsche'sgrandchildren - artists who have vanquished nihilism -are more difficult to identify. Perhaps they are awaitingthe advent of a society sufficiently at peace with itself toeschew the spirit of revenge. Perhaps, even today, theyhave not yet been born.

4Nietzsche, The Birthof TragedyNew York, 1956), p.27.slbid,p.142.6Nietzsche, The Caseof Wagner n Basic Writingsof Nietzsche(New York,1968), p.622.

71bid, .636.

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