MUSICAL COURIER
10
January 2 6, 1922
low the fugitive into the high mountain ways that presently invited him. Wagner’s limitations were no less marked than his abilities. I believe that his music dramas are, by long odds, the most stupendous works of art ever contrived by man—that it took more downright genius to imagine them and fashion them than it took to build the Parthenon, or to write ‘Faust’ or ‘Hamlet,’ or to paint the Sistine frescoes, or even to write the ninth symphony. But whoever enters the opera house gets a smell of patchouli into his hair, and a dab of grease paint on his nose. He may remain a genius, but he is a genius who is also a bit of a mountebank—a genius who thinks of his audience as well as of his work, and is not forgetful of box-office statements.”
But Nietzsche, like many of the rest of us, saw nothing of this except the greatness. As a boy he got hold of “Tristan” and immediately fell into a reverential worship of the genius-god who had created it. He was an amazing youth, and he and two friends of his took up an active espousal of the cause of the much-criticised master. That was in 1862. With regard to the “Tristan” and “Meistersinger” overtures which he heard at a concert at that time he wrote: “For the life of me I cannot preserve an attitude of cool criticism in listening to this music; every nerve in my being is set tingling.”
They Meet.
In November, 1868, Nietzsche met Wagner for the first time. He was twenty-four; Wagner fifty-five. Wagner was evidently interested in the young man because in him he found an ardent admirer and advocate, and because he discovered that Nietzsche shared his enthusiasm for Schopenhauer. The very next spring, 1869, Nietzsche was called to the University of Basle as professor of philology and found himself thus in the vicinity of the Villa Tribschen on Lake Lucerne, where Wagner was then living. Nothing more natural than a call, and the acquaintanceship thus started soon ripened into a devoted friendship. The exchange of letters commenced with an invitation from Wagner for his birthday celebration, May 22, and Nietzsche’s long and rather youthfully gushing letter of reply. In this letter he says, among other things: “It has long been my intention to express unreservedly the debt of gratitude I owe you. The highest and most inspiring moments of my life are closely associated with your name, and I know of only one other man, and that man your twin brother of intellect, Arthur Schopenhauer, whom I regard with the same veneration.”
In a letter to a friend he says: ‘Wagner embodies all the qualities one could possibly desire. The world has not the faintest conception of his greatness as a man and of his exceptional nature.” And Wagner says of Nietzsche: “He was ever like a messenger from a higher and purer world.”
But he was also a messenger of a much more material 'sort. There seems to have been no end of requests from Wagner for services of all sorts, from superintendence of the printing of the autobiography to the purchase of dolls for the children. Some of Wagner’s letters at this time throw an interesting light on his work. In one place he says: “On the whole I am not good for much; catarrhal and abdominal pains frequently interrupt my Nornes at their weaving.” (Götterdämmerung, opening scene.) (December 3, 1869.) And a few weeks later he says: “My work moves along slowly and laboriously.” Again two weeks later he writes: “My work is going fairly well.”
At this time Nietzsche sent Wagner two of his lectures on Greek culture, and they were received with every evidence of high approval and appreciation. These works seem to have aroused Wagner from a period of depression. Cosima writes: “Your treatise and our preoccupation with it has marked a turning point in the mental atmosphere. We were both so depressed that we had about abandoned our evening readings, but the pilgrimage we took with you back to the most beautiful period of the world’s civilization, has had so salutary an effect upon our spirits, that on the following morning the master sent his Siegfried down the Rhine.” (Götterdämmerung, third scene.)
The Happiest Period.
This was the happiest period of the entire friendship. Nietzsche stood almost in the light of a son to Wagner. He devoted not only his time, but his talents to Wagner, who, in return, found him a publisher and gave him as much affection as a man his age could give to a man so much younger. In January, 1872, Nietzsche felt that he was not doing enough to help the cause of Wagner, and offered his services. Wagner was inclined to accept this offer because he felt that only Nietzsche could succeed in awakening the public to a clear understanding of the Bayreuth festival idea for which funds were then being collected so slowly and with such difficulty that it seemed probable that the whole plan would fall through. However, nothing tangible ever came of this offer, owing, possibly, to the fact that there was no means of financing such a plan. Wagner was obliged to submit to many discouragements and disappointments at this time, and Elizabeth Nietzsche fairly estimates his force of character in the following words: “Wagner conducted himself admirably even in the face of this bitter disappointment. This capacity of his to bear failure and disappointment with fortitude, his tenacity of purpose, his unshaken belief in himself and his cause, the intrepid, courageous and dignified manner in which he met discouragements were all qualities which so endeared the master to my brother. Wagner will ever remain an inspiring example for those who have high ambitions and ideals.”
It has already been said that Wagner looked upon Nietzsche almost in the light of a son. That is not strange, but it is decidedly strange to find him looking upon his own son, the son of his old age, almost in the light of a grandson. This is felt in the letter of June 25, 1872: “O friend! You really cause me nothing but anxiety at present, and that is just because I think so much of you. Strictly speaking, you are the one and only gain life has brought me so far, aside from my beloved wife. Fortunately, Fidi (Siegfried) has now been added to my blessings, but there is a gap between us which only you can fill—something like the relationship of a son to a grandchild.”
It is difficult, indeed, to understand how Nietzsche could turn aside from such devotion as that, as he ultimately did, and for no cause that could appear sufficient to the average normal human being. Wagner had moved to Bayreuth and it was owing to the materialistic atmosphere
(Continued, on page 54)
THE WAGNER-NIETZSCHE CORRESPONDENCE
AT LAST AVAILABLE FOR ENGLISH READERS
An Intimate Picture of One of the Most Remarkable Friendships in the Whole History of Art Told in Letters
letters were written at a period of great stress, such stress as would most assuredly have broken lesser men, men of less genius. Wagner was struggling against ill health and adversity, to complete his major opus and to get it adequately produced; Nietzsche was going through those terrible throes of birth that belong to the formative period of all very original genius. It Is not surprising that Wagner should have accepted his young friend’s worship at more than its true worth; not surprising that he should have tried to use Nietzsche’s genius for the furtherance of his own designs in the desperate extremity of his need; not surprising that Nietzsche should have longed greatly for freedom from Wagner’s influence and gradually have repudiated some of his own early enthusiasm.
An introduction by H. L. Mencken will do much to place the careful and thoughtful reader in a position of proper perspective. The following passage gives to each of the two men his rights: “He (Nietzsche) was willing to sacrifice everything, including even his own career as a philologist, to the cause (of Wagner). But in the end, as we all know, it was not Wagner who reaped the rewards of that sacrifice: it was Nietzsche himself, and the world of ideas. Wagner asked for too much, and got, in the end, nothing. He had seduced the young professor from the straight and narrow path, but he was quite unable to fol-
The first English translation of the famous Nietzsche-Wagner correspondence, edited by Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth Foerster-Nietzsche. has just been issued by Boni and Liveright, New York. The translation is by Caroline Kerr who in several cases appears not to be as conversant with the German idiom as her long residence in Berlin would seem to imply. Of course the correspondence has long been available in German, but reading it in the vernacular brings out once more the fact that it is in some ways unpleasant. It brings into sharp relief those contrasts between an artist and his work which were best passed over in silence. To wash the dirty linen of genius in public can serve no useful purpose and may, conceivably, lessen the power for good that is the chief value of every work of genius. These letters, and the malicious comments upon them by Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth, show both Nietzsche and Wagner in no favorable light. In reviewing such a work and in endeavoring to determine the amount of harm that may be done by it, one must bear in mind the many readers who will ultimately get hold of it in our public libraries, who are not sufficiently conversant with the whole great subject to sort out the good from the bad and form a fair judgment of the whole. Such readers are more than likely to lose some of that wonderful inspiration that genius should be to every one of us. They are likely to overlook the fact that these
TED SHAWN
Announces the opening of a New York Studio of
DEN I SHAWN
The Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn School of Dancing and Its Related Arts
Eighty West Fortieth Street
PERSONAL instruction under Ted Shawn and assistant teachers. Classes now forming and Mr. Shawn is now available for private lessons. Special emphasis is being placed upon producing individual dancers for New York productions. Original dances created and costumed to meet individual needs.
For information regarding rates of classes and private lessons write or telephone
MABEL R. BEARDSLEY, Manager
Telephone : Longacre 7233	EIGHTY WEST FORTIETH STREET, NEW YORK
THE WASHINGTON HEIGHTS MUSICAL CLUB
announces a Recital by ETHEL CROW
CONTRALTO
on Tuesday Evening, January 31, 1922
at
The Plaza—Fifth Ave. at 58 and 59 Streets New York
thoto by Ira L. Hilt's Studio
Program
2.	Cinq Mélodies populaires Grecques..........Maurice Ravel
(o) Le Reveil de la mariee.
(b)	Là-bas vers l’Eglise.
(c)	Quel galant!
(d)	Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques.
(e)	Tout Gai!
3.	Carnaval ....................................... Fourdram
IV.
1. I Love Thee ........................Henry Holden Huss
2. Summer Night .......................Henry Holden Huss
3.	When Stars Are in the Quiet Sky..................Chadwick
4.	Song of Spring ............................J■ R• Çathcart
5.	Tomorrow ........................................Henschel
6.	Whither .........................................Canfield
.........Grieg
........Grieg
. . .. Schumann .Tschaikowsky .Tschaikowsky . Rachmaninoff .. Moussorgsky
.......Goring Thomas
“Nadeshka.”
.....Augusta Holmès
II.
1.	Morning Dew ..........
2.	The Poet’s Heart
3.	Sun of the Sleepless.
4.	A Heavy Tear .........
5.	Invocation to Sleep ..
6.	Woods of Spring
7.	Death’s Serenade ----
Ohl My Heart Is Weary.
Recitative and Aria from III.
1. Le Chevalier de belle Etoile......
(By request)
MR. CHARLES ALBERT BAKER, Accompani.t Mason & Hamlin Piano
Tickets now ready. Price, $2.20, including war tax. Apply to MISS J. R. CATHCART, Pres., 27 West 57th St.
Telephone Plaza 5859._______
1