Nietzsche and the music of the future. A dialogue with Berlioz and Wagner

Um diálogo com Berlioz e Wagner

Abstract

Starting from Nietzsche’s verdict that he became a Wagnerian when he encountered the piano reduction of Tristan, the article examines how reliable this claim actually is. By considering Nietzsche’s relationship with music since his earliest youth, an investigation into the music of the future and the debates surrounding this controversy allows us not only to understand his positions, but also to nuance that statement about his adherence to Wagner. What the texts written before Nietzsche’s personal contact with Wagner reveal is a taste not always unequivocal toward Wagner’s work. We discover that it is with Berlioz’s music that this rapprochement first takes place. Thus, when the break with Wagner occurs from Human, All Too Human onwards, many elements of this early critique—already present before The Birth of Tragedy—resurface, although now integrated into the context of the later work in which they are taken up again.