This explains why
the Greeks were able to attain such heights in philosophy, and yet fell
to such depths in music.
Music has an additional merit. It lulls to sleep the residuum of
disinterested malice in the soul.
As a majority of the lovers of painting and sculpture are second-hand
dealers and Jews in disguise, music lovers, for the most part, are a
debased people, envious, embittered and supine.
CONCERNING WAGNER
I am one of those who do not understand music, yet I am not completely
insensible to it. This does not prevent me, however, from entertaining a
strong aversion to all music lovers, and especially to Wagnerites.
When Nietzsche, who apparently possessed a musical temperament, set
Bizet up against Wagner, he confessed, of course, premeditated
vindictiveness. "It is necessary to mediterraneanize music," declares
the German psychologist. But how absurd! Music must confine itself to
the geographical parallel where it was born; it is Mediterranean,
Baltic, Alpine, Siberian. Nor is the contention valid that an air should
always have a strongly marked rhythm, because, if this were the case, we
should have nothing but dance music. Certainly, music was associated
with the dance in the beginning, but a sufficient number of years have
now elapsed to enable each of these arts to develop independently.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39