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Author : Jos Hermans
THE FIRST FESTIVAL
On July 24, 1876, Nietzsche arrives in Bayreuth. There he attends the rehearsals of Götterdämmerung, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. Heavily pained by his poor health, he flees on Aug. 3 to Klingenbrunn in the Bohemian woods and begins his "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, a book for free spirits." On Aug. 12 he returns to Bayreuth at the urging of Wagner and of his sister Elisabeth and experiences the first series of performances of the Ring, reportedly in quite a depressed state. One can imagine his agony, ravaged as he was by partial blindness and bursting headaches, in an environment that left much to be desired in terms of comfort and was subject to a heat wave.
One can also imagine the feelings and expectations with which Nietzsche traveled to Bayreuth on July 23. Nietzsche expects to be received on the rolled-out red carpet as one of the confidants, as one of the most competent and deserving among the guests of honor. But then comes the shock: nothing at all happens! He is one among many and he remains so. In Wahnfried, his presence is perceived as rather incidental and that notwithstanding his festive address. Or was it precisely because of the festiv address? Surely it is highly curious that Wagner, who was initially greatly affected by the book, does not mention the book a single time thereafter in notes or letters. Perhaps Wagner, who was already busy enough with the rehearsals, only read the first few pages and immediately expressed his thanks for sending the book. Perhaps the Wagners' curiosity in the following days was then still strong enough to read the entire book.
Nietzsche rarely shows himself in Wahnfried. Not only does he feel thrown back on himself, Wagner also makes him the target of jokes. Nietzsche flees to Klingenbrunn in the Fichtelgebirge. Higher philosophical motivations for his flight will be sought in vain in letters or notes from those days. In all letters to his sister he will speak exclusively of his health complaints. No wonder: much later Nietzsche will invent all sorts of arguments and project them back onto the Festival in order to present his flight as a philosophical act.
And what is in the notes Nietzsche writes down in Klingenbrunn, in which he will later claim to be dealing with all the insufferable discomforts of the Festival? Not a word! But for the humiliations Nietzsche will avenge. Two years later, he will turn "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" into a weapon that will move Wagner to an open rift.
Only one part of the reform plans remains: the Bayreuther Blätter. Toward the end of the Festival, Wagner entrusts the editing of the Bayreuther Blätter to Hans von Wolzogen rather than Nietzsche. No doubt Wagner did not want to engage in the duplicitous play of the brilliant but unreliable Nietzsche. How would the Bayreuther Blätter have turned out under Nietzsche's direction? Keeping Nietzsche's later publications in mind one realizes what linguistic and intellectual level the Bayreuther Blätter could have achieved. Wagner will give vent to his dissatisfaction with the journal on several occasions.
In the fall of 1876, Nietzsche is informed of this by von Wolzogen himself, and once again he must have felt passed over and bruised. He suppresses the embarrassment for himself as well. He is ashamed of the defeat. This is also why he does not want to meet his friends during the Festival. They know his expectations. It must have been painful after all the expectations he had created in them too, to now stand there empty-handed. Later Nietzsche will not tire of disguising the truth of his defection from Wagner with ever new sham motives until all personal, biographical crises will have turned into philosophical ones and defeat into victory.
In light of these facts, Dieter Borchmeyer's statement is fairly ridiculous when he claims that Nietzsche would have broken with Wagner in order to survive as an independent thinker. According to Borchmeyer, the break was caused by a diametrically opposed attitude toward culture and the role art should play. In reality, the opposite happened: it was not differences of opinion and the resulting hatred that led to the split but exactly the opposite.
One does not hear a bad word from Nietzsche about the Festival itself. In a letter to Wagner (27.09.1876) he praises it as " a great event." Even in the following year he shows no sign of the later reproaches. It is part of Nietzsche's nature to hide the shock over the catastrophic downfall of his Bayreuth ambitions and the bitterness of his hurtful snubs outwardly and to give the appearance that nothing is wrong. Partly because of this, Wagner does not perceive how much he has disappointed and hurt the friend. His telegram of 23.09.1876 requesting Nietzsche to deliver silk underwear from Basel proves this, and Nietzsche shows his resilience when he replies with: "Highly honored friend! You have done me a favor with the little order you placed with me: it reminds me of the time in Tribschen." (27.09.1876)
Desperate after his Bayreuth fiasco, Nietzsche tries to rescue his " mission" of an educational reform. And since Bayreuth cannot offer him a forum, he hopes to realize it on his own in the form of a Greek academy or a monastery for free spirits. Already in the fall of 1876 he reveals his plans : "It will be a kind of monastery for freer minds (...) we will stay in Sorrento for about a year. Then I will go back to Basel, unless I build up my convent somewhere, I mean 'the school of educators' (where they educate themselves) in a higher style." (letter to Reinhart von Seydlitz, 24.09.1876)
The project is indeed partially realized. With Mrs. Meysenbug, Doctor Paul Rée, young Albert Brenner and the Seydlitz couple, such a convent was built in Sorrento, if only for a few people and only for a few weeks.
To his failure in Bayreuth, Nietzsche himself contributed much, through his insincerity with which he concealed his critical objections, and was capable of exaggerated praise. Often he faked interest in Wagner's work and his goals and his festive address was anything but a recommendation. Under the circumstances, it had to lead to failure. The biographical shock was the impetus for emancipation, for the birth of the actual Nietzsche, and thus ultimately, after all, an event of intellectual-historical stature.
FAREWELL IN SORRENTO
Nietzsche and Wagner would have met one more time. That meeting, arranged by a mutual friend (Malwida von Meysenbug) is said to have taken place in Sorrento, Italy on Nov. 2, 1876. Legend has it that, in the evening twilight, Wagner is said to have spoken for the first time about his Parsifal after which a shocked Nietzsche is said to have left for good. In her book "Der einsame Nietzsche" Elisabeth Nietzsche writes : "About this melancholy last walk my brother first spoke out much later. What had actually happened that evening ? Two passionately defended ideals suddenly came face to face, the one life denying Roman Catholic Parsifal, the other life affirming, deifying, powerful Siegfried character. And this last ideal my brother had mistaken for the Wagnerian! What a disillusionment!"
The oft-told story of this final rendezvous was concocted with certainty by Nietzsche's sister. Both Cosima Wagner's diaries and Nietzsche's correspondence itself prove this. Indeed, Nietzsche could not possibly have been so unpleasantly surprised in Sorrento by Wagner's sudden piety. The libretto had already been read to him seven years before, during the Christmas of 1869, at which time he declared himself to be "very impressed," and, moreover, he was already then aware of Wagner's non-denominational piety of old age. Moreover, one year after the supposed clash surrounding Parsifal, Nietzsche wrote: "The glorious promises made in Parsifal may comfort us wherever we need comfort. " (Letter to Cosima Wagner, 10.10.1887)
MENSCHLICHES, ALLZUMENSCHLICHES (1878)
The first volume of "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" was finished in 1878 and was sent to Wahnfried in two copies. Wagner's name was concealed in it. Nietzsche did not enter the arena openly. To avoid scandal or because he secretly hoped to achieve improved relations ? Incidentally, Nietzsche never concealed from his friends that they could never replace the Wagners.
"Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" marks the open break between Wagner and Nietzsche. Wagner received the book on April 25, 1878. Anyone opening the chapter "Aus der Seele der Künstler und Schriftsteller" enters a minefield of malicious insults that Wagner must have felt were outright provocations. The occasion for this aggressive outburst of his hitherto veiled aversions must be sought in the shock that Wagner caused him with his letter to Dr. Eiser in the fall of 1877. This letter is essential to understanding the sharpness of Nietzsche's aggressive malice and the true nature of the "deadly insult" he will talk about later.
The Frankfurt physician Dr. Eiser had met Nietzsche during a stay in Switzerland, and as an admirer he had offered him his services. However, he was also president of the Wagner Society of Frankfurt but had no inkling of the fact that Nietzsche had meanwhile turned away from Wagner. In order not to offend his doctor, Nietzsche felt compelled to conceal the true nature of his relationship with Wagner. Even with his doctor, Nietzsche had to endure Wagner's shadow.
In Wagner's letter to Dr. Eiser, Wagner believes that Nietzsche's migraines and poor vision could be due to his excessive onany. Wagner had not picked this suspicion out of thin air. Cosima's daughter Daniela had once caught him in Tribschen's room with his private parts in his hand. She would later confirm this to Curt von Westerhagen, and it must also have come to Cosima's and Wagner's attention. The following comment by Cosima in a letter to Malwida von Meysenbug in which she believes that Nietzsche's shyness would be related "to that one thing we women cannot understand..." points to this. Daniela's indiscretion also hints at how painfully the incident may have weighed on Nietzsche's later visits. Wagner's indiscretion may have been tactless but it was prompted by genuine concern and not rancor as Nietzsche may have thought. Wagner still did not have the slightest suspicion of his covert apostasy. In reply to Dr. Eiser's reply Wagner wrote : "No more word about our friend: I know that through your love he is in the best hands. Nothing can help him now. If he should fall into real need, I could help him, for I would share everything with him." (29.10.1877). With Wagner there is no trace of thoughts of revenge.
Dr. Eiser sees no harm in communicating the contents of Wagner's letter to Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in his covert aversion to Wagner hypersensitive to indiscretions of this kind, reacts violently. The fairly loquacious Dr. Eiser would later explain to his colleague Eugen Kretzer, "this defection took place in my living room when I handed Nietzsche that letter with the best of intentions. An outburst of rage was the result. Nietzsche was beside himself: - the words he found for Wagner cannot be reproduced. - From that moment the breach was sealed."
By New Year 1878 his bitterness was so great that he gave away his scores of Tristan and Die Meistersinger, both donated by Wagner, to two of his pupils. By the time he finishes the manuscript of "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" in early 1878, Wagner has been mentioned by name in several places. He therefore decides to publish the book under the pseudonym Eduard Leuchtenberg-Roon. The publisher, seeing bread in the account of a renegade Wagnerian, insists on publishing the book under Nietzsche's name. Nietzsche relents and he changes Wagner's name to "the artist" throughout.
"With beating heart and hopeful expectation" my brother sent the book to Bayreuth, Elisabeth Nietzsche reports. "The only response was icy silence." Learning of Bayreuth's reaction through intermediaries, Nietzsche writes to Köselitz: "Wagner has missed a great opportunity to show greatness of character." A typical response from Nietzsche the poseur.
Two years later he writes to Malwida von Meysenbug : "Do you hear anything from the Wagners? It has been three years that I have heard nothing from them: they too have left me, and I knew at once that Wagner, from the moment he noticed the gulf between us, would drop me. I was told that he would write against me. That he should continue with that above all: the truth must in any case come to light! I think of him with constant gratitude; to him I owe one of the most powerful exhortations to spiritual independence. Mrs. Wagner, as you know, is the most sympathetic woman I have ever met. But to hook back up with them altogether, I'm no good for that. It is too late." (14.01.1880)
THE DEADLY INSULT
Eight days after Wagner's death Nietzsche laments, "Wagner was by far the most complete person I have known, and in this sense I have suffered a great loss for six years. But there is something between us both like a deadly insult; and it could have come terribly if he had lived any longer." (Letter to Overbeck, 22.02.1883)
About the cause of this deadly insult he further shrouds himself in silence. Two months later he is somewhat more concrete when he writes to Köselitz: "Wagner is rich in bad ideas; but imagine that he exchanged letters about it (even with my doctors) to express his conviction that my changed way of thinking was the result of unnatural licentiousness, with hints of pederasty." (21.04.1883)
This is all wrong: Wagner corresponded with only one doctor and not about his changed way of thinking but about his migraine attacks and vision problems and not as a possible result of pederasty but of onany. Possibly Dr. Eiser expressed himself badly, more likely, however, is that Nietzsche chose to prefer not to mention the thorny topic by name. And so Wagner biographer Curt von Westernhagen saw the cause for the deadly insult in the letter to Dr. Eiser. Martin Gregor-Dellin also concurred with this conclusion.
In 1979, Mazzino Montinari found a letter in the Goethe-Schiller-Archiv in Weimar that Nietzsche had sent to Malwida von Meysenbug on 21.02.1883 that neither Westernhagen nor Gregor-Dellin knew. In it Nietzsche cites Wagner's "return to Christianity and the Church" as the reason for the deadly insult. The letter excerpt in question is as follows: "But things are getting worse and worse, and now, especially after Wagner's death, very bad. (...) Wagner's death has affected me terribly; and although I am out of bed again, I am far from getting rid of the aftermath. (...) It was hard, very hard, to have to be an opponent for six years of someone I so revered and loved as Wagner; yes, and even, as an opponent, to have to condemn oneself to silence - for the sake of the reverence the man as a whole deserves. Wagner offended me in a deadly way -I want to tell you anyway! - I felt his slow return and crawl back to Christianity and the Church as a personal insult to me: my whole youth and its direction seemed tainted to me, insofar as I had paid homage to a spirit capable of this step. (...) Had he lived longer, oh what more could have come between us! I have terrible arrows on my bow, and Wagner belonged to the kind of people who can be killed by words."
This seemed to refute Dr. Eiser's thesis, and to this day it remains a contentious issue that Nietzscheans like to see settled in Nietzsche's favor. That thesis, however, is untenable. After all, what are the facts ?
Why did Nietzsche never mention a deadly insult in his notes or letters while Wagner was still alive? Perhaps because the matter was so private that its disclosure would further discredit the offended. Nietzsche faces a dilemma: to a maternal, puritanical woman like Malwida, he cannot reveal the true reason -Wagner's suspicion of onany. The ink from his pen would have turned red with shame. On the other hand, he must state the reason if not Malwida will undoubtedly find out from Cosima. And so he invents a reason by which he can win over Malwida -who was known for her church hostility- at Wagner's expense.
How could Wagner have betrayed him? Nietzsche comes to know Wagner as the man who had already demonstrated his commitment to the Christian faith during the Tribschen years, not just with Parsifal. Wagner had not changed direction. The man who took the turn was Nietzsche. And now, anno 1883, suddenly Parsifal - as a signal of Wagner's return to Christianity - would have been the cause of a deadly insult? It was an ersatz motif to mask the true reason.
In early 1878, after receiving the Parsifal libretto, Nietzsche had written to Reinhart von Seydlitz: "rather Liszt than Wagner," moreover, "Christianly limited," and "but the situations and their succession - is this not of the highest poetry? Is it not a final challenge of music?" No one writes like this about an opus that makes him feel insulted.
Four years later, in 1882, the year of the Parsifal premiere, Nietzsche is still unable to diffuse the work. He seriously considers traveling to the premiere of Parsifal i.e. if he receives an invitation to do so from Wagner. To Ida Overbeck he writes : "In Bayreuth this time I will shine by my absence" and adds, however, "unless Wagner still invites me personally (which, according to my notions of higher standards of decency, would be highly appropriate!" Not a bad word, however, about the opus itself. Nor a bad word about the Festival itself, which he supposedly fled in 1876 because of all sorts of unpleasantness, as he would later have us believe. In a letter to his sister, he goes a step further: "I am very happy that you want to be there. You will find all my friends there. But I - forgive me! - will certainly not come unless Wagner invites me personally and treats me as the most honored of his guests." (30.1.1882)
There is no doubt: he hopes for a gesture from Bayreuth. It does not come, of course, and he procures the keyboard extract to prepare his friend, Lou von Salomé, and his sister for their visit to Bayreuth.
In January 1887, when he first hears the prelude to Parsifal in Monte Carlo, he notes, "the greatest benevolence that has been shown to me for a long time (...) I know of nothing that would take Christianity so deeply and bring it so sharply to compassion. Completely uplifted and moved - (...) the greatest masterpiece of the sublime that I know, the power and severity in the grasping of a dreadful certainty, an indescribable expression of grandeur in the compassion about it; no painter has painted such a dark, melancholy look as Wagner in the last part of the prelude. Not even Dante, not even Lionardo. - As if for many years someone finally spoke to me about the problems that trouble me, not, of course, with the answers that I have just prepared for them, but with the Christian ones -which in the end have been the answer of stronger souls than our last two centuries have produced".
In a letter to Köselitz (21.01.1887) he summarizes these thoughts once more. To the public he cannot reveal this without feeling compelled to reveal the true reason for the deadly insult. It belongs to the ammunition of Der Fall Wagner.