music, freedom, and metaphysics 209comes to be regarded both as a temporary means of secular redemp-
tion, and as a threat to real religious redemption. At the same time
music is understood in both cases in relation to the need for transcen-
dence of sensuous existence. This conflict in approaches to the idea
of transcendence will play a major role in Wagner’s musical work, as
well as in Nietzsche’s philosophical – or post-philosophical – desire to
‘transvalue all values’.