Nietzsche's Philosophy of Music

"Without music, life would be a mistake"

Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Music in Birth of Tragedy

Nietzsche’s philosophy of music is grounded on Schopenhauerian metaphysics but ultimately reverses its most unfortunate conclusion, Schopenhauer’s denialism towards will.

Schopenhauer saw the world as both will and representation, as denoted by the title of his relevant work, The World As Will and Representation. The world is representation because all objects exist as such for subjects instead of as objects in a void, and active human reason and perception are essential parts of the world as subjects experience it. “Everything that in any way belongs and can belong to the world is inevitably associated with this being-conditioned by the subject, and it exists only for the subject. The world is representation.” (Schopenhauer 3). This representation is only objectified will, however. The world as will is the real, pre-rational ground of Being. “Later on we shall see that this applies to every movement of the body, not merely to movement following on motives, but also to involuntary movement following on mere stimuli; indeed, that the whole body is nothing but the objectified will, i.e., will that has become representation.” (Schopenhauer 100).

From this metaphysical view, Schopenhauer develops an aesthetic one. His philosophy of music as a direct representation of the will and a way of artistically conveying the inner being of the world has particular relevance here. “For, as we have said, music differs from all the other arts by the fact that it is not a copy of the phenomenon, or, more exactly, of the will’s adequate objectivity, but is directly a copy of the will itself, and therefore expresses the metaphysical to everything physical in the world, the thing-in-itself to every phenomenon. Accordingly, we could just as well call the world embodied music as embodied will; this is the reason why music makes every picture, indeed every scene from real life and from the world, at once appear in enhanced significance, and this is, of course, all the greater, the more analogous its melody is to the inner spirit of the given phenomenon.” (Schopenhauer 263).

In his work, Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche develops a dichotomy of art principles from Schopenhauer’s metaphysics. These are the Appolinian and the Dionysian, their names and qualities derived from the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus, respectively. The Appolinian is Nietzsche’s development of Schopenhauer’s world as representation while the Dionysian is Nietzsche’s development of Schopenhauer’s world as will. Accordingly, the art of sculpture is Appolinian while music is Dionysian. “Through Apollo and Dionysus, the two art deities of the Greeks, we come to recognize that in the Greek world there existed a tremendous opposition, in origin and aims, between the Apollinian art of sculpture, and the nonimagistic, Dionysian art of music.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 33).

Nietzsche juxtaposes dreaming as Apollinian and intoxication as Dionysian to convey the Schopenhauerian qualities of the two. “In our dreams we delight in the immediate understanding of figures; all forms speak to us; there is nothing unimportant or superfluous. But even when this dream reality is most intense, we still have, glimmering through it, the sensation that it is mere appearance” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 34). The world as seen through a Schopenhauerian lens is just this: the apprehension of figures and forms that we delight in our ability to order and understand, at the level of our own representation of it, at least, for this is only how it appears to us for the Schopenhauerian, and beneath the dreaming veil a darker reality stirs. “If we add to this terror the blissful ecstasy that wells from the innermost depths of man, indeed of nature, at this collapse of the principium individuationis, we steal a glimpse into the nature of the Dionysian, which is brought home to us most intimately by the analogy of intoxication.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 36). The Appolinian is the order where everything is individuated and discrete, everything established and understood in glittering golden apparitions, while the Dionysian is the more fundamental chaos that the violation of this order descends us into, the ecstasy of continuous being. The Apollinian black widow weaves appearances on the surface, painting whatever pictures suit her, while the Dionysian raven sings out willful hymns of worship from the depths of pure reality.

What is of particular interest in Nietzsche’s development of the Dionysian is how he regards lyric poetry, poetry which expresses emotion first and foremost, as a Dionysian art. “The poems of the lyrist can express nothing that did not already lie hidden in that vast universality and absoluteness in the music that compelled him to figurative speech. Language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial pain in the heart of the primal unity, and therefore symbolizes a sphere which is beyond and prior to all phenomena.” (Nietzshce & Kauffman 55). This is very Schopenhauerian. However, Nietzsche departs from Schopenhauer in seeing the cruelty and agony at the heart of being in a new positive light that cannot be found in the entirety of Schopenhauer’s work. The Dionysian is not just Nietzsche’s version of Schopenhauer’s world as will; it is Nietzsche’s way of accessing will without shirking at and seeking to negate it. He builds an aesthetic philosophy from will that is affirmative rather than an ethical one that is negative. “The horrible “witches’ brew” of sensuality and cruelty becomes ineffective; only the curious blending and duality in the emotions of the Dionysian revelers remind us–as medicines remind us of deadly poisons–of the phenomenon that pain begets joy, that ecstasy may wring sounds of agony from us.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 40). Even the Appolinian, including the art of epic poetry in contrast to the lyric poetry of the Dionysian, possesses this element of tenuous ambiguity between pleasure and pain. “At the Apollinian stage of development, the “will” longs so vehemently for this existence, the Homeric man feels himself so completely at one with it, that lamentation itself becomes a song of praise.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 43).

This pleasure-pain ambiguity is the philosophical architecture of Nietzsche’s affirmation of existence through the synthesis of the Appolinian and Dionysian art principles in tragedy. He describes how the Greeks brought together the two principles in their theatre tragedies, the original beacon of tragic consciousness, where the Dionysian and Appolinian resolve the magnetic tension established between them by their Schopenhaurian heritage and necessarily work together to reveal the former through the latter and produce the opposite result of Schopenhauer’s denialism. “With reference to these immediate art-states of nature, every artist is an “imitator,” that is to say, either an Appolinian artist in dreams, or a Dionysian artist in ecstasies, or finally–as for example in Greek tragedy–at once artist in both dreams and ecstasies; so we may perhaps picture him sinking down in his Dionysian intoxication and mystical self-abnegation, alone and apart from the singing revelers, and we may imagine how, through Apollinian dream-inspiration, his own state, i.e., his oneness with the inmost ground of the world, is revealed to him in a symbolical dream image.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 38).

Schopenhauer can only shirk at the discovery of will and conceive of an ethical model of a human being that would deny the will upon its realization as an act of good. “On the other hand, that knowledge of the whole, of the inner nature of the thing-in-itself, which has been described, becomes the quieter of all and every willing. The will now turns away from life; it shudders at the pleasures in which it recognizes the affirmation of life. Man attains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, true composure, and complete willlessness.” (Schopenhauer 379). Schopenhauer only speaks of willing as suffering, particularly relevant when it comes to his conception of the artist as one who suffers. “He is captivated by a consideration of the spectacle of the will’s objectification. He sticks to this, and does not get tired of contemplating it, and of repeating it in his descriptions. Meanwhile, he himself bears the cost of producing that play; in other words, he himself is the will objectifying itself and remaining in constant suffering.” (Schopenhauer 267).

Conversely, Nietzsche seizes the opening left by Schopenhauer’s conception of the artist as one who suffers, one who wills, and conceives of art and thereby willing instead as that which has the power to affirm and justify life. “On the contrary, we may assume that we are merely images and artistic projections for the true author, and that we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art–for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified–while of course our consciousness of our own significance hardly differs from that which the soldiers painted on canvas have of the battle represented on it.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 52). Tragedy is an aesthetic phenomenon. Tragic consciousness is that which affirms instead of denies life with all its pain, and saves us from that very denialism espoused by Schopenhauer as well as the composition that would put us at risk to it. “With this chorus the profound Hellene, uniquely susceptible to the tenderest and deepest suffering, comforts himself, having looked boldly right into the terrible destructiveness of so-called world history as well as the cruelty of nature, and being in danger of longing for a Buddhistic negation of the will. Art saves him, and through art–life.” (Nietzsche & Kauffman 59). Nietzsche’s philosophy of tragedy offers us the ability to see art as a rejuvenator and justifier of life, to see life itself as artistic, cruelty as creative, and even pain as pleasurable. Tragedy emancipates us from Schopenhauerian ethics of renunciation and these creative features of Nietzsche’s philosophy of music put him in a more favorable position than Schopenhauer, in my view.

(originally completed February 21, 2022)

The Development of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Music in Human, All Too Human

Nietzsche’s philosophy of music in Birth of Tragedy carries a lot of metaphysical baggage that is shed in Human, All Too Human. In Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche says that music has the power to save one’s soul from the suffering of life. “With this chorus the profound Hellene, uniquely susceptible to the tenderest and deepest suffering, comforts himself, having looked boldly right into the terrible destructiveness of so-called world history as well as the cruelty of nature, and being in danger of longing for a Buddhistic negation of the will. Art saves him, and through art–life” (Basic Writings 7). This is somewhat ambiguous because Nietzsche is saying that art in general can save us, but this is revealed for him by Greek tragedy in particular. This redemptive power of art is the main thrust of his philosophy of music at the time. Another key component of Birth of Tragedy is the dichotomy of art principles, the Apollinian and Dionysian, juxtaposed as connected with dreaming and intoxication respectively in order to convey their metaphysical qualities. “In our dreams we delight in the immediate understanding of figures; all forms speak to us; there is nothing unimportant or superfluous. But even when this dream reality is most intense, we still have, glimmering through it, the sensation that it is mere appearance” (Basic Writings 1). The Apollinian is akin to dreaming because everything is ordered in individuated, beautiful appearances that we can recognize. Still, the metaphysical views of Nietzsche in Birth of Tragedy are not quite as explicitly stated here as in his explanation of the Dionysian and intoxication. “If we add to this terror the blissful ecstasy that wells from the innermost depths of man, indeed of nature, at the collapse of the principium individuationis, we steal a glimpse into the nature of the Dionysian, which is brought home to us most intimately by the analogy of intoxication” (Basic Writings 1). What Nietzsche is saying here is that beneath the appearance that everything is individuated in an order we can understand, there is a deeper and more true reality of chaotic and continuous Being, which is the Dionysian. It’s clear that his philosophy of music in Birth of Tragedy is inextricably embedded in his metaphysical view of a world of ordered appearances and chaotic essence.

In Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche turns against this metaphysical view completely. “Others again have assembled all the characteristic traits of our world of appearance - that is to say, the idea of the world spun out of intellectual errors we have inherited - and, instead of indicting the intellect as the guilty party, have charged the essence of things with being the cause of the very uncanny character this world in fact possesses and have preached redemption from being” (Human 16). Nietzsche could very well be talking about himself at the time of Birth of Tragedy in this passage. His metaphysical view in Birth of Tragedy has its lineage in Arthur Schopenhauer and Immanuel Kant before him. Nietzsche himself preached redemption from the suffering of such a world as his metaphysics would conceive of it through art in Birth of Tragedy, as delineated above. In Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche sees this metaphysical view of a world of appearances and essences, full of suffering, as having been spawned from errors in the human intellect. He subtly uses the term world of appearance to denote not only the appearance side of the metaphysical dichotomy, but the dichotomy itself, as he has come to see it as a projection upon the world or the world as we have painted it. “Because we have for millenia made moral, aesthetic, religious demands on the world, looked upon it with blind desire, passion or fear, and abandoned ourselves to the bad habits of illogical thinking, this world has gradually become so marvelously variegated, frightful, meaningful, soulful, it has acquired color - but we have been the colorists: it is the human intellect that has made appearance appear and transported its erroneous basic conceptions onto things” (Human 16). It is clear that at this point Nietzsche sees even his aesthetic philosophy in Birth of Tragedy as akin to the same religious and ethical philosophies that he hadn’t taken part in, in the sense that they all share the same metaphysical error. With this turn against metaphysics, Nietzsche comes to see music no longer as an art form of particular significance but essentially just as music. He also says that the significance we tend to ascribe to music is the result of its historical development as intricately tied with symbolism. “In itself, no music is profound or significant, it does not speak of the ‘will’ or of the ‘thing in itself’; the intellect could suppose such a thing only in an age which had conquered for musical symbolism the entire compass of the inner life. It was the intellect itself which first introduced this significance into sounds” (Human 215).

It is interesting to wonder if the aesthetic philosophy of Birth of Tragedy could survive the critique levied against it in Human, All Too Human, and if it could, what would remain of it. It would perhaps be only a husk of its former self, as it is difficult to imagine the Apollinian and Dionysian without their metaphysical intricacy. Perhaps the tragic consciousness they produce together, without their pretensions to metaphysics, would result in an affirmation of life taken farther. That is to say that in the new tragic consciousness or new tragic way of conceiving of the world, we no longer even see life as suffering that needs to be redeemed by art but life itself, life on its face, as artistic. If we indeed are the colorists, then life itself is art, and if simultaneously art is affirmation, then life need not be redeemed. This would be the philosophy of music that I would settle on, if it could indeed be developed without becoming too metaphysical, as I’m on the fence between those of Nietzsche’s two periods I have discussed here.

(originally completed on March 9, 2022)

Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Music in His Later Period

Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of music did not change nearly as drastically between his later and middle periods as it did between his middle and early periods. Nietzsche retains his middle period stance against metaphysics in thinking that “In itself, no music is profound or significant, it does not speak of the ‘will’ or of the ‘thing in itself’; the intellect could suppose such a thing only in an age which had conquered for musical symbolism the entire compass of the inner life. It was the intellect itself which first introduced this significance into sounds” (Human 215). He does not return in his philosophy of music to a metaphysical or romantic viewpoint during his later period. However, the names of Richard Wagner and Dionysus reappear in his later period for the first time since his early period, in the new light of Nietzsche’s philosophy in general having been developed to its maturity.

Wagner reappears in Nietzsche’s later period as a central focus of his attack, whereas in his early period, the time of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche was closely allied with Wagner. He defines himself most directly and starkly against Wagner in The Case of Wager. Being quite polemical, this work is nonetheless philosophical as well. Nietzsche’s brutal, explicit attacks against Wagner in particular are buttressed by his philosophical commitments against decadence and idealism–in his own terms–in general. He sees Wagner as the primary symptom, a great swelling tumor of these values, as well as the principal purveyor of them, a priest, in the worst sense, of decadence. “He believed in it, he did not stop before any of the logical implications of decadence. The others hesitate– that is what differentiates them. Nothing else” (Case Second Postscript).

Long after refuting the saving of the soul that he espoused music to be capable of in Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche is still concerned with music’s effect on its listeners and its impact on culture. He is concerned with this not despite, but perhaps because, he thinks music should have more of a purpose than aiming for a certain effect and pulling the strings of its audience. “I do not like whatever music has no ambition beyond persuasion of the nerves” (Case 7). Wagner’s music, according to Nietzsche, is just that: a kind of manipulation not even formulated in musical terms but in terms of effect only. “Wagner never calculates as a musician, from some sort of musician’s conscience: what he wants is effect, nothing but effect. And he knows those on whom he wants to achieve his effects” (Case 8). Thus Wagner’s music is only a tool to be used, in conjunction with Wagner’s view that music was never simply music as Nietzsche concluded in Human, All Too Human. Wagner’s view of music as always tied to an ephemeral higher ideal serves to conceal that he was only using music for the ulterior motive of effects; it’s a kind of mystification. “‘Not mere music’–no musician would say that. … ‘Music is always a mere means’: that was his theory, that above all the only practice open to him. But no musician would think that way” (Case 10). If Wagner is not a musician, then what is he? For he is no dramatist either (Case 9). Wagner is a liar, an actor in the sense of one who makes an art of lying, and lying into an art. “As a musician, too, he was only what he was in general: he became a musician, he became a poet because the tyrant within him, his actor’s genius, compelled him” (Case 8). In opposition to Wagner, Nietzsche formulates a dictum of his later period philosophy of music: “That music should not become an art of lying” (Case 12).

The reasoning behind this–besides that music should be more substantial than a tool for effecting its audience–can be summed up by the fact that Nietzsche does not think music as an art of lying is good music, when put in conjunction with his bold pronouncement that “Wagner’s music, if not shielded by theater taste, which is a very tolerant taste, is simply bad music, perhaps the worst ever made” (Case 8). He finds it aesthetically displeasurable; it makes him sick. He diagnoses the whole European culture around him as sick with the illness of Wagner as well as music itself. “Wagner represents a great corruption of music. He has guessed that it is a means to excite weary nerves–and with that he has made music sick” (Case 5). The characteristics of the sickness are, of course, decadence and idealism: “Specific effect: degeneration of the sense of rhythm. … The youth becomes a moon-calf–an ‘idealist.’ He has gone beyond science; in this way he has reached the master’s [Wagner’s] level. … He solves all problems in the name of the father, the son, and the holy master” (Case Second Postscript).

Decadence and idealism are two of Nietzsche’s great enemies, moreso than any individual person. “To have to fight the instincts–that is the formula of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct” (Twilight II.11). Decadence is life depreciating; decadence is life at its lowest, in its descending trajectory. Nietzsche describes Wagner’s style in such terms: “Life, equal vitality, the vibration and exuberance of life pushed back into the smallest forms; the rest, poor in life” (Case 7). Idealism, put simply for present purposes the belief in a “true” world, is connected to decadence. “Any distinction between a ‘true’ and an ‘apparent’ world–whether in the Christian manner or in the manner of Kant (in the end, an underhanded Christian)–is only a suggestion of decadence, a symptom of the decline of life” (Twilight III.6).

Idealism and decadence are life-denying, as epitomized by Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher of pessimism, and Wagner. For what would one need the “true” world for if one loved life itself? Nietzsche describes the true world as a promise of salvation used by Christians to control one’s behavior: “The true world–unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man (‘for the sinner who repents’)” (Twilight IV.2). It is precisely this depreciation of life for the sake of the “true” world that Nietzsche sees as both the motivator and effect of the concept of the “true” world–this is precisely idealism and decadence’s connection. Nietzsche contrasts Bizet to Wagner as a kind of cure for these symptoms: “You begin to see how much this music improves me? … The return to nature, health, cheerfulness, youth, virtue!” (Case 3). It is clear that he likes music that is conducive to the affirmative rather than the negative in relation to life, as well as music that is not merely lying turned to art. It is also clear how significantly his broader philosophy shines through in his polemical attack on Wagner; the latter would really be nothing without the former.

The Dionysian returns in Nietzsche’s later period partly as the culmination of the alternative to decadent, pessimistic art. “The tragic artist is no pessimist: he is precisely the one who says Yes to everything questionable, even to the terrible–he is Dionysian” (Twilight III.6). Here, art as affirmation of life returns from Nietzsche’s early period, but in a different, further developed form. Life no longer needs to be split in two in order to be affirmed; no idealism is necessary for the affirmation, no “true being” accompanies it. Nietzsche says that music has a certain Dionysian aspect to it again as well. This time, instead of simply categorizing music as Dionysian–as one part of a dichotomy–he says that music is a refinement of histrionic and chaotic Dionysian energy. “To make music possible as a separate art, a number of senses, especially the muscle sense, have been immobilized… so that man no longer bodily imitates and represents everything he feels. Nevertheless, that is really the normal Dionysian state, at least the original state” (Twilight IX.10).

I prefer Nietzsche’s philosophy of music in his later period to that in his middle period, because in his later period it is more developed and mature, while the middle period is a kind of total turn-around against everything he was for in his early period. I also think that the further affirmation of life that I spoke of in my middle period paper is achieved in his later period. His middle period is actually too cold for my tastes–his later period is electric and electrifying.

(originally completed on April 16, 2022)

Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Translated by Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Modern Library, 2000.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human. Translated by Reginald John Hollingdale,

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Case of Wagner. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Translated by

Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Modern Library, 2000.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Twilight of the Idols. The Portable Nietzsche. Translated by

Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Penguin Books, 1976.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World As Will and Representation. Vol. 1, Dover Publications, 1969.