“And those who were seen dancing
were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
This month[1] Wagnerites around the globe observed the 146th wedding anniversary of German romantic composer Richard Wagner to one frau Liszt – Cosima: illegitimate daughter of prolific pianist Franz, and adulteress formerly wed to famed conductor Hans von Bülow.
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| Richard Wagner and Cosima |
The bastard child of an illicit affair and daughter of an often absentee father, young Cosima would find herself, in the flower of her youth, craving the affections of her famous father. The virtuosic pianist and composer Franz Liszt, it seemed, employed only sporadic episodes of devotion to his daughter in her early years – it was a devotion, however, that, albeit infrequent, would prove most fruitful for Cosima – for it would be through introductions to Franz' former pupil Hans von Bülow and fellow composer Richard Wagner, that the daughter Liszt would come to meet husbands number 1 and 2.
It would be here, during a rehearsal that Wagner would observe of Cosima her charm and allure:
"I felt utterly transported by the sight of Cosima ... she appeared to me as if stepping from another world."Cosima, by all accounts, shared the affections of Richard – just over a year after Wagner’s epiphany the two would succumb to one another:
"with tears and sobs...we sealed our confession to belong to each other alone."By 1868, just five years after issuing this undying pact, and two years before divorcing von Bülow, Cosima would move in with Richard permanently.
This famous love match would produce, much like in the music of the future groom, spectacles of rumor and intrigue of the most grandiose fashion. The union would begat a daughter, Isolde – whilst Cosima was still a von Bülow, no less – and a most unusual display of kinship: the scorned Hans went on, as originally planned, to conduct Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, knowing full well the daughter born by his philandering wife and close confidante shared the opera’s namesake. (The adulterous couple would bear three children in total before exchanging nuptials on August 25, 1870, producing two daughters - Isolde and Minna, and a son, Siegfried). Hans' dedication to Wagner’s majestic oeuvre is not to be understated – the shafted husband conducted Tristan just two months after Isolde was born!)
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| Learn more about Wagner's dedication to Cosima here |
It would be a grand romantic gesture that would be often repeated through the ages by many an admirer of Wagner – including by one of the maestro’s most ardent admirers, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose adoration for the composer ran so deep, it was claimed the young German sought to "elevate himself" to the “level” (i.e. the social standing) of his idol by not only attempting to become a composer himself, but also by making his Tribschen debut by issuing a dedication to Cosima just as Wagner had done the previous year!
It would be in the year 1871 that Nietzsche would pen a copy of his piano duet “Echo of a New Year’s Eve” with the dedication to Cosima, which, also much like his hero Wagner, he planned to send to her as a celebratory birthday gift.
Cosima, upon receiving the composition in the post, sat to play the work with the conductor Hans Richter, with husband Richard in attendance. It is said that Wagner was so amused by the young amateur’s oeuvre that he had to make a speedy exit from the room, whereupon he would later be found sprawled out on the floor, clutching his stomach, howling with laughter.
“It's more terrible than you think!”adding that the entire composition was
“the most undelightful and the most amateursical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time,”and that the only hope the budding musician had of pursuing a serious career in the composition of music was to limit himself to the production of vocal scores so that the voice could distract from the “wild sea of tones” that was synonymous with Nietzsche’s music.
Was Nietzsche’s music truly awful, or was the aspiring amateur composer a victim of straying from the rigid "rules" of German music established during his lifetime? Listen below to the philosophers' "Heldenklage" (A Hero's Sorrow - L) and "Beschwörung" (Entreaty -R)[2] and decide for yourself:
Footnote:
[1] The Wagners' 146th anniversary was observed Thursday, August 25, 2016.
[1] Lyrics for "Entreaty" are based on a text authored by famed poet and writer Aleksandr Pushkin. A translation of this lied can be found at this external link: lieder.net
-Rose.
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