OVERTUREThe Drama
of Disillusionment
Music and the colossal power: A double passion · How to
live when the music stops · Post sirenian melancholy ·
Disillusionment · Attempts and temptationsJ? IETZSCHE EXPERIENCED music as authentic reality and
colossal power. Music penetrated the core of his being, and it meant
everything to him. He hoped the music would never stop, but it did, and
he faced the quandary of how to carry on with his existence. On
December 18,1871, Nietzsche traveled from Basel to Mannheim to hear
Wagnerian music conducted by the composer. Upon his return to Basel,
he wrote to his feiend Erwin Rohde: Everything that... cannot be
understood in relation to music engenders ... downright aversion and
disgust in me. And when I returned home from the concert in
Mannheim, I actually had a peculiarly exaggerated weary dread of every-
day reality, because it no longer seemed real to me, but ominous" (Β
3,257; Dec 21,1871).
His return to a daily routine devoid of music was a problem that
Nietzsche pondered incessandy. There is such a thing as life after music,
he deliberated, but can it be endured? "Without music, life would be an
error" (6,64; 77"Maxims and Arrows" § 33).
Music, Nietzsche declared, imparts moments of "true feeling"
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