pro and contra wagner 247Germans – they called themselves theyoungGermans – like the word of
redemption. Has hechanged his mindafter all about this? Given that it
seems that he at least wanted tochange others’ mindsabout it?... Has
thehatred of lifecome to dominate him like it did Flaubert?... Because
Parsifalis a work of spite, of vindictiveness, of secret poisoning of the
preconditions of life, abadwork. – The sermon of chastity remains a
provocation to perversion: I despise everyone who does not feelParsifal
to be an assault on morality.
(Nietzsche 2000 : 2 , 1053 )The first part of this passage appears in bothOn the Genealogy of Morality
andNietzsche contra Wagner.Itisnoticeable, however, that Nietzsche
doesn’t mention the music ofParsifalat all. His critical view of some
aspects ofParsifal’s presentation of sensuous existence as mere fatal
temptation to sin does seem pretty defensible, and the fate of Kundry
is disturbing, to say the least – thoughZiˇzek (ˇ 2002 ) suggests elements
of a defense. However, the effects of the conflict inParsifalbetween
diatonic and chromatic music, as well as of the technique of motivic
ambiguity, once again mean that the piece as a whole cannot be reduced
to the action and the words, as though these were simply advocating
Schopenhauerian renunciation of the world.
If Nietzsche is seeking what in the modern secular world can make
one love life, works of art likeParsifalcan arguably do a pretty good
job, whatever Wagner thought he was trying to do. One doesn’t need
to buy into an ideology which may be part of what an opera conveys
to profit from the opera. This seems almost too obvious to state, but
Nietzsche’s indignation at Wagner’s later works sometimes blinds him
to more than just this particular commonplace. When Nietzsche does
talk elsewhere about the music ofParsifalhe amusingly says that ‘what
you hear is Rome –Rome’s faith without words’ (Nietzsche 2000 : 2 , 726 ),
contrastingParsifalunfavourably with the character of Siegfried, whom
he, depressingly, presents as a kind of superman. His judgement derives,
though, from his antagonism to Christianity and his aim of ‘transvaluing
values’, rather than from a specific characterisation of the music, which
is by no means just religious in character. In the same section he claims
that ‘geniuses of [Wagner’s] kind seldom have the right to understand
themselves’ (ibid.: 724 ), which gets nearer the mark because it allows
Wagner’s work to transcend his intentions.
However, even when considering only what the later Nietzsche
says about Wagner, we are once again faced with a series of blatant