Literature and Music - session 4 - Goethe, Liszt, Wagner, Nietzsche, Mahler

Goethe (1749-1832) Faust, Part One (1808) ‘in Faust’s Study i’ (Oskar Werner) [4:00]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXHmwp4JkGk

excerpts from Faust, including Walpurgisnacht:

 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Walpurgisnacht, continued: Mephisto Waltz No. 1 – 1859  [Van Cliburn, pianist):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o59zEOq1uBY

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Prelude – the Tristan chord (Solti and Vienna):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8EQcMurhAI

Liebestode, end of Act 3, Nina Stemme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8enypX74hU

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

In the 1880s, Nietzsche produced a devastating critique of Richard Wagner, announced his rupture with the German artist, who had influenced him, and accused him of embracing the repellant German Volkish (folk nationalist) movement and Antisemitism. The operas are criticized as manipulative, seducing the audience and making them passive.  Wagner is seen as less than Bizet and, now, philosophically insignificant, and he has become a symptom of the broader "disease" affecting Europe: nihilism.

excerpt from The Twilight of the Idols:

excerpt from The Birth of Tragedy (1872):

also, Zarathustra's Midnight Song

Gustave Mahler (1860-1911) Symphony no. 3, 4^th move, Zarathustra’s midnight song (Meier):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aM9hezKudY

Symphony No. 1, 3^rd movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5A5tFyXQio