Hello again. I’m coming to you today to ramble for a while about my (current) favourite philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. There are many aspects of the man’s personality that I can speak about for hours. I’m quite sure this blog post will not be the last time you hear his name around here. But allow me some time to talk about one specific topic in regards to the man’s fascinating life and relationships: his relation to the famous German composer, Richard Wagner.
How does one even begin unpacking this peculiar odyssey? You see, one thing I have come to realize about Nietzsche is that he appeared to have a love-hate relationship with essentially everybody on planet Earth (very much including himself). It would appear to anybody that Nietsche could do nothing but sing Wagner’s praises in his earlier writings. This passionate complementary approach to the composer carried on for quite some time. And yet, by the end of his life, Nietzsche had taken a sour note to Wagner. When once Wagner was the jewel of Germany in the eyes of a young Nietsche, he became what would be described as a literal disease. He used to sing the man’s praises to the point where he could be considered the composer’s personal promotional speaker. “A master at finding tones in the realm of human suffering, depressed and tortured souls, at giving voice to even mute misery. None can equal him in the colors of late fall, in the indescribably moving happiness of the last, truly last, truly shortest joy.” This is only one of the many passages dedicated to a man Nietzsche clearly admired.
And it was not just his opinion of Wagner that eventually soured. It was also the other German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, who Nietzsche turned his back on. As I said, a love-hate relationship with anyone you can think of.
I must admit that my first assumption when going over Nietzsche’s works myself was that this dramatic shift in opinion (now speaking of Wagner again) was more the fault of Nietsche than it was of Wagner. I only believed this because Nietzsche, as much as I admire many aspects of his mind, seemed a difficult person. That is where I leave that statement: a ‘Difficult Person’. There was an obvious level of egoism, misogyny, and robust pessimism to his nature. And yet he would openly claim to be against such things as I just stated (save, perhaps, for misogyny. Those views were rather unwavering, unfortunately). He contradicted himself more than perhaps any other writer whom I enjoy so much. So I naturally came to the conclusion that Nietzsche, who seemed to be at war with his own persona, had decided one day that Wagner had grown contrary to him, and therefore was the enemy. Upon further study into the subject, I have come to realize that Wagner may be more at fault for this divorce of icons. Now, I know for a fact that I am not the first person to make such a claim. This exact topic has been discussed countless times for many generations before I was even born. However, even though the fracturing of their relationship has remained a subject of interest, I have seen far too many people summarize the issue as Neitzsche falling out of love with Wagner’s philosophy and music itself. I actually wonder if it is even more lilliputian than that.
Allow me to explain. It has become, from what I can tell, a classic tale of two brilliant but tortured minds clashing with their opposing ideologies about life, music, and personal politics. It has come to be recognized, without much scrutiny, that Nietzsche simply stopped agreeing with the views of Wagner. And this shift in viewpoints led to the breaking of that fellowship, beginning an era of ardent critique that almost took the form of derisive obsession from Nietzsche. Nietzsche once heralded Wagner as the saviour of German culture. How could he make such an intense shift? How could that admiration morph so completely into casual mockery? I believe a big part of it was due to the all-consuming maw of Wagner’s ego in comparison to a young Nietzsche’s. And believe me, when Nietzsche’s ego seems tame in comparison, there is something deeply wrong.
You see, to Wagner, Nietzsche was becoming a sort of ‘pet’. At first, it was a form of tutelage, but it soon became clear that Nietzsche’s glowing words of praise were being used by Wagner to promote his own career. Nietzsche became the perfect way, especially after the release of ‘The Birth of Tragedy’, for Wagner to gain more respect among the German intelligentsia. Nietzsche needed a father, and Wagner needed a young mind to shape and set loose into the world as an example of his influential intellect. Their friendship took on a very strange dynamic at this point. I can almost picture Wagner waltzing into every room in a florid cape while a quiet Nietzsche slides into the room using the composer’s shadow as cover. It can be surmised that Nietzsche viewed Wagner as a kind of father figure (to clarify my former statement), since his own had died while Nietzsche was very young. In fact, Wagner was born the same year as Nietzsche’s father. This may be the reason Nietzsche was originally blind to the disagreeable aspects of Wagner’s persona. But this blindness faded for a few reasons. One, is likely the fact that Nietzsche had fallen in love with dear Cosima, Wagner’s wife. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, complicates things. But Wagner’s increasingly apparent Antisemitism came into conflict with Nietzsche as well, who firmly stood against such things. Nietzsche’s words have been twisted by many over the generations since his passing. The Nazis even had a fondness for his work. Imagine that. It is remarkable how often Philosophy as a whole is bastardized to fit whatever narrative someone wishes to bend it to.
Anyway, back to Wagner’s ego. I believe it was so vexatious and so persistent that even the likes of Nietzsche could handle it no longer. I am not quite sure that his change in opinion in regards to the composer was anything deeper than “I used to like you, and therefore thought your work was wonderful. But now you have tested my patience for the last time, and therefore your work is rubbish”. It sounds childish. It sounds witless. It sounds a little too simple. And yet I think it is most likely. Now, this isn’t to say their disagreements on philosophy did not play its part. I only think it was the fire that grew from the spark that was their preexisting personal drama.
Nietzsche and Wagner met in 1868, and very quickly they were bonded. It took another ten years, when Nietzsche released ‘Richard Wagner in Bayreuth’ in 1878, for the bond to begin to wither away. (Well, it very likely withered away before that publication.) Ten years is quite a long time, really. You can really get to know someone in that time. Sometimes you do not like the things you find out. Nietzsche came to realize that Wagner cared more about the desire for success than he did about the beauty of the art itself. Yes, one could read this as Nietzsche’s own personal philosophy clashing with that of Wagner’s, therefore causing the rift. But I read Nietzsche’s stark shift in his thoughts on Wagner’s body of work as being driven by wounded emotion. Wagner was not the man Nietzsche thought he was. He was not the father figure that Nietzsche may have seen him being in his head. This realization, over however long a period it took, would’ve brought great pain to Nietzsche. That pain likely turned to anger, which he vented with passionate and scathing critique in his later works.
Nietzsche was a lonely and troubled man. The nature of his relationships, in whatever form they took, serve as an endless source of interest for me. As I said earlier, Nietzsche is my single favourite philosopher. It is enjoyable for me to pick at his brain in whatever ways I can. The best way would be to analyze his relationships in life and see what I can glean from them. The case of Wagner, to summarize, does not seem to paint Nietzsche as the unreasonable one. This may be because I have an obvious Nietzsche bias, but I was open before in acknowledging the man had a very difficult persona himself. Two difficult personas coexisting has never, to my knowledge, led to a happy ending. There are many reports of Wagner being nothing short of an insufferable braggart. I believe Wagner’s antisemitism, staggering egomania, and overall monstrousness may have broken Nietzsche’s heart. He would not write of him so often, even many years after their last conversation, if the reality of the man did not wound Nietzsche in some way. The way things ended with Wagner, as well as Cosima, ended up being just another tragedy in Nietzsche’s already tragic life.
Well, that was my unplanned ramble for today. I’m sure I’ll be back for another one soon.
-T.R. Preston