254 music, philosophy, and modernity
last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth in which the idea of immortality
is evoked in relation to the starry sky. The point for Nietzsche is not to
give in to a nostalgic temptation, in which art offers the illusion of a
‘true world’, of the kind previously offered by religion and philosophy,
in opposition to what is in fact the only world. The anti-metaphysical
form of art entailed by this criticism appears at various times as the
‘Dionysian’ art we encountered in chapter 6. However, with the excep-
tion of Greek tragedy, which Nietzsche interprets as an affirmation of
existence in all its forms, just what art this now could be remains remark-
ably unclear, assuming we don’t think it’s Bizet. It is not, though, that
music is excluded from such art. Nietzsche’s remark that ‘In the last
analysis there is no reason for me to take back the hope for a Dionysian
future of music’ (ibid.: 2 , 1112 ) means that music is not inherently
incapable of Dionysian affirmation, and this is underlined in his claim
that ‘when I described Dionysian music I described whatIhad heard’
(ibid.).
When it comes to the content of this music we are, however, left with
a vague promise, and little else. There are a few passages in which he
describes his vision for a new music. InBeyond Good and Evilhe talks of
a ‘redemption of the music of the North’, associating this with a vision
of ‘Southern’ music which is ‘deeper, more powerful, perhaps more
evil and more mysterious’ (ibid.: 723 ). Strangely, these terms from the
description of the music in question fit some of Wagner’s music rather
well, if one forgets the ‘Northern’ sagas that the music accompanies.
The contrast between North and South derives from Nietzsche’s (by this
time justified) critical association of Wagner with the idiocy of contem-
porary German nationalism, as well as from his assessment of Wagner’s
assimilation of music and metaphysics. It is Wagner’s investment in
Schopenhauer that becomes the ground of Nietzsche’s wider suspicion
of certain kinds of music. However, although they are good knockabout
stuff, the arguments he offers are largely just rhetorical andad hominem.
Nietzsche says, for example, in relation to Wagner’s change fromOpera
and Dramato his post- 1870 position:
With this exceptional increase in the value of music which seemed to
grow out of Schopenhauerian philosophy, suddenlythe musicianhimself
also increased enormously in value: he became from now on an oracle, a
priest, indeed more than a priest, a sort of mouthpiece of the ‘in itself’ of
things, a telephone of the beyond – hereafter he did not only talk music,
this ventriloquist of God – he spoke metaphysics.
(ibid.: 845 )