SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
unbounded faith in the power
He is an idealist with unbounded faith in the power of the mind and the liberating virtue of art. This idealism is at first religious, as in Tod und Verklärung, and tender and compassionate as a woman, and full of youthful illusions, as in Guntram. Then it becomes vexed and indignant with the baseness of the world and the difficulties it encounters. Its scorn increases, and becomes sarcastic (Till Eulenspiegel); it is exasperated with years of conflict, and, in increasing bitterness, develops into a contemptuous heroism. How Strauss’s laugh whips and stings us in Zarathustra! How his will bruises and cuts us in Heldenleben! Now that he has proved his power by victory, his pride knows no limit; he is elated and is unable to see that his lofty visions have become realities. But the people whose spirit he reflects see it. There are germs of morbidity in Germany to-day, a frenzy of pride, a belief in self, and a scorn for others that recalls France in the seventeenth century. «Dem Deutschen gehört die Welt» («Germany possesses the world») calmly say the prints displayed in the shop windows in Berlin. But when one arrives at this point the mind becomes delirious. All genius is raving mad if it comes to that; but Beethoven’s madness concentrated itself in himself, and imagined things for his own enjoyment. The genius of many contemporary German artists is an aggressive thing, and is characterised by its destructive antagonism. The idealist who «possesses the world» is liable to dizziness. He was made to rule over an interior world. The splendour of the exterior images that he is called upon to govern dazzles him; and, like Caesar, he goes astray. Germany had hardly attained the position of empire of the world when she found Nietzsche’s voice and that of the deluded artists of the Deutsches Theater and the Secession. Now there is the grandiose music of Richard Strauss.
What is all this fury leading to? What does this heroism aspire to? This force of will, bitter and strained, grows faint when it has reached its goal, or even before that. It does not know what to do with its victory. It disdains it, does not believe in it, or grows tired of it.[182]
[Footnote 182: «The German spirit, which but a little while back had the will to dominate Europe, the force to govern Europe, has finally made up its mind to abandon it.»–Nietzsche.]
Like Michelangelo’s Victory, it has set its knee on the captive’s back, and seems ready to despatch him. But suddenly it stops, hesitates, and looks about with uncertain eyes, and its expression is one of languid disgust, as though weariness had seized it.
And this is how the work of Richard Strauss appears to me up to the present. Guntram kills Duke Robert, and immediately lets fall his sword. The frenzied laugh of Zarathustra ends in an avowal of discouraged impotence. The delirious passion of Don Juan dies away in nothingness. Don Quixote when dying forswears his illusions. Even the Hero himself admits the futility of his work, and seeks oblivion in an indifferent Nature. Nietzsche, speaking of the artists of our time, laughs at «those Tantaluses of the will, rebels and enemies of laws, who come, broken in spirit, and fall at the foot of the cross of Christ.» Whether it is for the sake of the Cross or Nothingness, these heroes renounce their victories in disgust and despair, or with a resignation that is sadder still. It was not thus that Beethoven overcame his sorrows. Sad adagios make their lament in the middle of his symphonies, but a note of joy and triumph is always sounded at the end. His work is the triumph of a conquered hero; that of Strauss is the defeat of a conquering hero. This irresoluteness of the will can be still more clearly seen in contemporary German literature, and in particular in the author of Die versunkene Glocke. But it is more striking in Strauss, because he is more heroic. And so we get all this display of superhuman will, and the end is only «My desire is gone!»
In this lies the undying worm of German thought–I am speaking of the thought of the choice few who enlighten the present and anticipate the future. I see an heroic people, intoxicated by its triumphs, by its great riches, by its numbers, by its force, which clasps the world in its great arms and subjugates it, and then stops, fatigued by its conquest, and asks: «Why have I conquered?»
this was: Unbounded Faith In The Power
go to next chapter: trials and disappointments
