Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsdramatic song rises in intensity, that sudden explosiv ' e intoxicationof spirit, honest through and through and selfless - that was the echoof his own feeling and experience, and when he heard it he was permeatedwith a glowing anticipation of supreme power andinfluence! Thus it was he came to understand that grand opera was themeans through which he could give expression to his ruling idea; hisdesire drew him towards it, his eyes turned in the direction of itshome. A long period of his life, together with the daring changes andalterations his plans, studies, places of residence, acquaintanceshipsunderwent, are explicable only by reference to this desire and to theexternal resistance the needy, restless, passionately naive Germanartist was bound to encounter. Another artist understood better howto become master in this domain; and now it has gradually becomeknown with what an intricate web of influences of every kind Meyerbeerprepared and achieved each of his great victories, and with whatscru·pulous care he weighed the succession of 'effects' in the operaitself, it is also possible to understand how shamed and incensedWagner felt when his eyes were openedflto the kind of 'artifices' theartist was virtually obliged to employ ifhe was to wrest a success fromthe public. I doubt whether there has been another great artist in allhistory who started out so greatly in error and who engaged in themost revolting form of his art with such goodwill and naivety: andyet the way in which he did it had greatness in it and was thereforeextraordinarily fruitful. For out of the despair he felt when he cameto recognize his error he also came to comprehend the nature ofmodern success, of the modern public and of the whole of modernartistic falsity. By becoming a critic of , effect' he produced in himselfthe first trembling awareness of how he himself might be purified. Itwas as though from then on the spirit of music spoke to him with awholly novel psychical magic. As if he were returning to life after along illness, he hardly trusted his eyes or his hands, he crept alonggroping; and thus it appeared to him a miraculous discovery whenhe found he was still a musician, still an artist, indeed that it was onlynow that he had become a musician and artist at all.Every further stage in Wagner's evolution is characterized by acloser and closer union between his two fu ndamental drives: theirwariness of one another diminishes, and hereafter his higher self nolonger condescends to serve its violent, more earthly brother, it lovesit and cannot but serve it. Finally, when the goal of this evolution hasbeen reached, the most tender and pure elements are containedwithin the most powerful, the impetuous drive goes its way as before228