As regards Nietzsche's hostility to the theatocracy of Wagner, I share
it fully. This business of substituting the theatre for the church, and
teaching philosophy singing, seems ridiculous to me. I am also out of
patience with the wooden dragons, swans, stage fire, thunder and
lightning.
Although it may sound paradoxical, the fact is that all this scenery is
in the way. I have seen King Lear in Paris, at the Theatre Antoine,
where it was presented with very nearly perfect scenery. When the King
and the fool roamed about the heath in the third act, amid thunder and
lightning, everybody was gazing at the clouds in the flies and watching
for the lightning, or listening to the whistling of the wind; no one
paid any attention to what was said by the characters.
UNIVERSAL MUSICIANS
German music is undoubtedly the most universal music, especially that of
Mozart and Beethoven. It seems as if there were fewer particles of their
native soil imbedded in the works of these two masters than is common
among their countrymen. They bring out in sharp relief the cultural
internationalism of Germany.
Mozart is an epitome of the grace of the eighteenth century; he is at
once delicate, joyous, serene, gallant, mischievous. He is a courtier of
whatever country one will.
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