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Posted by Webmaster Once again—no offence (after all, even you describe your music as "atrocious")—it is in fact more atrocious than you think, maybe not detrimental to the commonweal, but worse that that, detrimental to yourself, you who cannot waste more poorly any excess of leisure than to rape Euterpe in this kind of manner. I cannot object if you tell me that I have overstepped the bounds of civilité puérile [good manners]: "You must discern in my ruthless candor (rudeness) sincere deep respect as well"—I won't make such a lame excuse. I just have to give vent to my indignation regarding such antimusical tonal experiments: perhaps I should turn part of it against myself, insofar as I've made the performance of Tristan possible, and am therefore indirectly to blame for such an eminent and enlightened mind as yours, esteemed Herr Professor, having been afflicted with such regrettable fits at the piano.
on 9/7/2007, 5:41 pm, in reply to "Re: Review of Nietzsche's Manfred Meditation (musical composition)"
Board Administrator
Imagine writing an ostensibly beautiful mathematical solution on a blackboard, and then the chalk begins to squeak without end ... Just thinking about this piece of "music" makes me cringe. On the other hand, some of his lieder and early pieces are quite nice.
How gladly would I like to express to you once more, with what admiration and gratitude I am always thinking of you. You have opened up for me the way to the most sublime impression of art in my life; and if I was unable to thank you immediately after the two performances [of Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde"], then please attribute this to the state of utter shock, in which a person does not speak, does not thank, but hides himself away. But all of us left Munich with the most profound feelings of personal obligation to you; and unable to express this more clearly and eloquently, I came upon the idea that I might prove my wish to demonstrate my gratitude to you by sending you a composition [Manfred Meditation], in the admittedly poor but necessary form of a dedication intra parietes. And such a good wish! And such a dubious piece of music! Ridicule me, I deserve it. [....] But thanks to the fact that you have the magic remedy, you are my physician: and if you should find that your patient produces atrocious music, then you possess the secret Pythagorean skill of curing him by means of "good" music. With this, however, you would rescue him for philology: while he, left to himself without good music, would begin to groan musically from time to time, like cats on the rooftops.
— Basel, July 20, 1872: Letter to Hans von Bülow.
— Munich, July 24, 1872: Letter to Nietzsche from Hans von Bülow.
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