The Case of Wagner Complete Works, Volume 8 · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
A MUSIC WITHOUT A FUTURE.
Of all the arts which succeed in growing on the soil of a particular culture, music is the last plant to appear; maybe because it is the one most dependent upon our innermost feelings, and therefore the last to come to the surface--at a time when the culture to which it belongs is in its autumn season and beginning to fade. It was only in the art of the Dutch masters that the spirit of mediæval Christianity found its expression--, its architecture of sound is the youngest, but genuine and legitimate, sister of the Gothic. It was only in Handel's music that the best in Luther and in those like him found its voice, the Judeo-heroic trait which gave the Reformation a touch of greatness--the Old Testament, _not_ the New, become music. It was left to Mozart, to pour out the epoch of Louis XIV., and of the art of Racine and Claude Lorrain, in _ringing_ gold; only in Beethoven's and Rossini's music did the Eighteenth Century sing itself out--the century of enthusiasm, broken ideals, and _fleeting joy._ All real and original music is a swan song.--Even our last form of music, despite its prevalence and its will to prevail, has perhaps only a short time to live: for it sprouted from a soil which was in the throes of a rapid subsidence,--of a culture which will soon be _submerged._ A certain Catholicism of feeling, and a predilection for some ancient indigenous (so-called national) ideals and eccentricities, was its first condition.
Wagner's appropriation of old sagas and songs, in which scholarly prejudice taught us _to_ see something German _par excellence_--now we laugh at it all, the resurrection of these Scandinavian monsters with a thirst for ecstatic sensuality and spiritualisation--the whole of this taking and giving on Wagner's part, in the matter of subjects, characters, passions, and nerves, would also give unmistakable expression to the _spirit of his music_ provided that this music, like any other, did not know how to speak about itself save ambiguously: for _musica is a woman...._ We must not let ourselves be misled concerning this state of things, by the fact that at this very moment we are living in a reaction, _in the heart itself_ of a reaction. The age of international wars, of ultramontane martyrdom, in fact, the whole interlude-character which typifies the present condition of Europe, may indeed help an art like Wagner's to sudden glory, without, however, in the least ensuring its _future prosperity._ The Germans themselves have no future....
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.