Nietzsche contra Wagner
Nietzsche contra Wagner Nietzsche's last book, which he brought to paper end of 1888 before he collapsed on January 3, 1889 in Turin.
Already months before, he had there written several works in which it dealt with were his relationship with Richard Wagner: The Case of Wagner, Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo. With this selection, more or less revised texts did Nietzsche, author of The Birth of Tragedy, refute the accusation that he first became the Case of Wagner ardent admirer a bitter opponent of the composer.
So he asked " documents in the file " earlier writings - for example, from Human, All Too Human - together, intended to prove that he had in 1876, taken with you Farewell to Wagner during the first Festival. The doubts of the young author Nietzsche in the matter of Wagner have been clearly confirmed by the research based on earlier writings and designs.
Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche
The ratio of Wagner, Nietzsche was ambivalent. As a young professor at Basel, Nietzsche was dated 31 years older than Wagner enthusiastic and visited him regularly from May 1869 in Triebschen. He admired and revered Wagner, as his young wife Cosima. In return, Nietzsche was recorded as a son with Wagner. Many letters from this period testify to the more than friendly terms. So writes the 24 -year-old Nietzsche to his friend Erwin Rohde, after he had first met Wagner in Leipzig:
Wagner had intended to include Nietzsche in the organization of the first Bayreuth Festival. Nietzsche was not averse, and wrote several positive articles and essays, including Wagner in Bayreuth. At Wagner's 60th birthday Nietzsche wrote:
From still not clearly clarified reasons of personal or emotional nature (distance Wagner from earlier ideals, return to Christian symbolism with the Parsifal or the decadence of Bayreuth ), the relationship cooled and broke with the last meeting in September of 1876 in Sorrento. Since then, there was no correspondence, but one above the other wrote. Only after Wagner's death in 1883 - Nietzsche is said to have suffered greatly from - could Nietzsche ( apparently) free of Wagner and criticized him now increasingly violent.
Cosima Wagner and Nietzsche
On the relationship is speculated to date much. Nietzsche became acquainted with the little older Cosima Wagner in Triebschen know when it was already heavily pregnant with her son Siegfried, and stayed at the birth of the child in June Triebschen. It was primarily Cosima, which corresponded with Nietzsche and obviously for him an equally competent discussion partner was her husband. Nietzsche wrote her several poems and composed for them. He later called her his " Ariadne ", as in his poem " Ariadne's Lament ". On the other hand, he chalked it later on to have his idol Richard Wagner negatively affected, because who so admired by his cultural revolutionaries had crawled out of his sight "to the Cross". Cosima, his Catholic " bondage ", only she could be the culprit, she had him " spoiled " and held " idolatry " with him. His profound comment, often misinterpreted as a supposed Parsifal review:
In his book The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche becomes even clearer:
When Nietzsche was admitted after his collapse in the hospital Jena, you wrote there his saying: " My wife Cosima Wagner has brought me here. " It was later in his estate several drafts of letters to Cosima Wagner.
Dated January 3, 1889 ( the day of its collapse ):
Dated at approximately December 25, 1889:
Nietzsche contra Wagner
Nietzsche goes in his very last writing, which again grappled with Wagner and the subtitle " documents in the file of a psychologist " bears similarities and contrasts one.
The Case of Wagner
Nietzsche wrote this " relief " with the subtitle: "A Musicians problem" in September 1888, presented already in his preface clear that he is a child of a decadent time, but, unlike Wagner and Schopenhauer, which he called " his disease "means, on the other hand fights and now by" " the whole" fact man of immense distance overlooks self-mastery. " He begins his critical remarks with a comparison between the " amiable " music of Georges Bizet's Carmen, which embodies light and the world on this side, and the heavy, sultry atmosphere ( " steam " ) Wagner.
Nietzsche's critique of Wagner is complex, and although they mainly on late work ( Parsifal ) inflamed, he now moved it to earlier works and the Ring of the Nibelung, whom he had celebrated in the Untimely Meditations. As a former " student " Schopenhauer ( Schopenhauer as Educator ), who later turned against the pessimism of his teacher, Nietzsche analyzed its influence on Wagner. Have Wagner as a revolutionary thinker, first the evil of the world sees in treaties, laws, institutions - the contract subject in the ring - later changed his world view, and the Christian motif of redemption came into focus. Many figures Wagner should henceforth be " redeemed". Wagner's " ship" is after the " Twilight of the Gods of the old morality" long run " on this funny car" ( optimism ), until it was moved to the " reef " of Schopenhauer's philosophy. He had the ring then translated into Schopenhauer: Everything in the world laufe wrong, and all perish. So be only nothingness, Cancellation, "Götterdämmerung " salvation - and this nothing will now celebrated incessantly by Wagner. Nietzsche repeated several times that Wagner was the artist of the " decadence ":
His art was mixed on the most seductive way, what would the world most: the brutal, the artificial and the Innocent ( Idiotic ). His music was a ruin and targets " on the nerves ." Nietzsche increases in the course of his remarks on the one hand in " rants " and refers to Wagner as the greatest actor, the other as a genius, " increased voice capacity of music to Immeasurable " have the. He wanted nothing more than " effect ". With sarcasm he states:
Ecce homo
In his nearly contemporaneous written autobiographical balance sheet, which acts as a magnifying glass of thinking of Nietzsche, he takes a lot of times position to Wagner. Overall, he walks alone in Ecce homo about 70 times on Wagner, where it is easy depending on the intention to quote Nietzsche against itself.