Nietzsche, Music and the Artistic Socrates

Abstract

The relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner has become an industry in itself (cf. Hollinrake, Nietzsche... ; Kohler). From the perspective of a Nietzsche-scholar, the friendship cannot be ignored, since it gives valuable insight into the formative years of the young professor and the evolution of his thought, illuminating nearly every step of the way along Nietzsche's path from classical philologist to philosopher. Inquiry into this period of his life also sheds light on Nietzsche's relationship to the arts, especially music, a subject from which Nietzsche was never able to divorce himself or his philosophy. After all, Nietzsche hardly published a work that was not in some part devoted to music, and examination of his personal correspondence reveals that his opinions on music constituted a major component of his thoughts, activities and friendships, both public and private. But Nietzsche was not merely a listener. He was a composer in his own right, a fact that had gone unappreciated in Nietzsche research until after the Second World War. With the publication of Der musikalische Nachlass in 1976, a fresh interest in Nietzsche's music was awakened. This collection of the philosopher's musical works has led to a number of recordings of them, and his Lieder share another with those of Franz Liszt. The present study will attempt to suggest how Nietzsche's musical activity might be integrated into our consideration of his philosophy. Nietzsche's compositions are vital to understanding his views on the process of creation in general, especially as they evolved during his friendship with Wagner. Nietzsche himself offered up an implicit command along this line in a letter to Malwyda von Meisenberg in January of 1875: