Wagner Quotations[© Hannu Salmi, see also the original German quotations!]
It was Germany's incalculable misfortune that at about the time that the
German spirit had reached a point of sufficient maturity to be finally
able to confront the challenge that faced it in that sublime field, the
German peoples' legitimate state interests were entrusted to the counsels
of a prince to whom the German spirit was utterly alien, a man who was
the most perfect embodiment of an un-German, Romance concept of the
state.
KLRW IV, 18. Cf. PW IV, 156.
KLRW IV, 15. Cf. PW IV, 153.
KLRW IV, 17. Cf. PW IV, 155.
PW IV, 152.
PW IV, 163.
PW IV, 163.
KLRW IV, 9.
Wagner, Opera and Drama, PW II, 191.
Wagner, State and Religion, PW IV, 11-12.
KLRW IV, 14. Cf. PW IV, 151.
Wagner, Richard: My Life. London 1911, p. 603.
Wagner, Richard: The Diary of Richard Wagner 1865–1882. The Brown
Book. Presented and annotated by Joachim Bergfeld. Translated by
George Byrd. Cambridge 1980., 73.
Wagner, Beethoven, PW V, 65.
PW IV, 140.
Wagner, What Is German?, PW IV, 155-156.
Wagner, Art and Revolution, PW I, 56.
Wagner, The Art-work of the Future, PW I, 184.
Wagner, The Art-work of the Future, PW I, 204-205.
Wagner, An End in Paris, PW VII, 66-67.
Wagner to Karl Graf von Enzenberg June 15, 1866, Wagner 1987,
697-698. Translated by Stewart Spencer.
Wagner, German Art and German Policy, PW IV, 42.
Cosima's diary recording September 4, 1870, in: Wagner,
Cosima: Diaries. Edited and annotated by Martin Gregor-Dellin and
Dietrich Mack. Translated by Geoffrey Skelton. Vol. 1: 1869–1877. London
1978, 266.
KLRW = König Ludwig II. und Richard Wagner. Briefwechsel. Bearbeitet von
Otto Strobel. 5 Bde. Karlsruhe 1936–39.
PW = Richard Wagner's Prose Works. Translated by William Ashton Ellis. 8
Vols. London 1893–99. (reprinted 1993–95 by the University of Nebraska
Press)
In the case of Ashton Ellis' translations on Wagner's prose works, the
quotations are not always identical with the original. Some passages are
new translations because Ashton Ellis' edition is not quote clear. I
would like to acknowledge the help of Dr. Stewart Spencer in this
work.
All the above quotations were gathered for my book
Imagined
Germany: Richard Wagner's National Utopia (Peter Lang, New York
1999).
Curiously enough, our historical memory of the splendour of the German
name dates from a period that was so harmful to the German character,
namely, the period when the Germans ruled over non-German
(ausserdeutsche) peoples.
The Italian assimilated all those aspects of antiquity that he could
imitate and reproduce, while the Frenchman, in turn, borrowed from this
reproduction whatever might flatter his national sense of formal
elegance; only the German recognised antiquity in all its purely human
originality and as something that enjoyed a significance which, totally
remote from utilitarian concerns, was uniquely suited to reproducing the
purely human.
The word "deutsch" is also found in the verb "deuten" (to make
plain): thus "deutsch" is what is plain to us, the familiar, the wonted,
that which was inherited from our fathers and springs from our very own
soil.
Bach's spirit, the German spirit, emerged from the sanctuary of the most
wonderful music, the place where it was reborn. When Goethe's Götz
appeared, a cry of joy went up: "That's German!"
He showed the world what antiquity is, he showed the human spirit what
Nature and the world are. These deeds the German spirit brought forth by
itself from its inmost desire to become conscious of itself. And this
consciousness told it what it was the first to proclaim to the world,
namely, that the beautiful and the noble came into the world not for the
sake of profit or even for the sake of fame and recognition, but that
everything done in the spirit of this teaching is "German", and that is
why the German is great; only what is done in this spirit can contribute
to Germany's greatness.
The birth of the new German spirit brought with it the rebirth of the
German people: the German War of Liberation of 1813, 1814 and 1815
suddenly familiarised us with this people.
Today we need only faithfully to expound the myth of Oedipus according to
its inmost essence, and in it we win an intelligible picture of the whole
history of mankind, from the beginnings of Society to the inevitable
downfall of the State. The necessity of this downfall is, in the mythos,
merely foreshadowed: it is the part of actual history (die wirkliche
Geschichte) to accomplish it.
Stability is therefore the intrinsic tendency of the State
(...) The embodied voucher for this fundamental law is the
Monarch. In no State is there a weightier law than that which
centres its stability in the supreme hereditary power of one particular
family (...) Personally he has naught in common with the interests of
parties, but his sole concern is that the conflict of these interests
should be adjusted, precisely for the safety of the whole. His sphere is
therefore equity, and where this is unattainable, the exercise of grace
(Gnade). Thus, as against the party interests, he is the representative
of purely-human interests, and in the eyes of the party-seeking citizen
he therefore occupies in truth a position well-nigh superhuman.
It is very common for the patriot to quote his country's name in a spirit
of total veneration. The more powerful a people, however, the less store
it seems to set by referring to itself with such a degree of reverence. I
have no doubt that it is far less common in public life in England and
France for people to speak of `English' and `French virtues', whereas the
Germans frequently refer to `German depth', `German seriousness', `German
fidelity' and so on.
Returning in the afternoon, I stretched myself, dead tired, on a hard
couch, awaiting the long-desired hour of sleep. It did not come; but I
fell into a kind of somnolent state, in which I suddenly felt as though I
were sinking in swiftly flowing water. The rushing sound formed itself in
my brain into a musical sound, the chord of E flat major, which
continually re-echoed in broken forms; these broken chords seemed to be
melodic passages of increasing motion, yet the pure triad of E flat major
never changed, but seemed by its continuance to impart infinite
significance to the element in which I was sinking. I awoke in sudden
terror from my doze, feeling as though the waves were rushing high above
my head. I at once recognised that the orchestral overture to the
Rheingold, which must long have lain latent within me, though it
had been unable to find definite form, had at last been revealed to me. I
then quickly realised my own nature; the stream of life was not to flow
to me from without, but from within.
Then came the Students' Association. The League of Virtue was
founded. All so fantastic that no human being could grasp it. But I
did. Now it is me no one grasps: I am the most German being, I am
the German spirit. Question the incomparable magic of my works,
compare them with the rest: and you can, for the present, say no
differently than that - it is German. But what is this
German? It must be something wonderful, mustn't it, for it is
humanly finer than all else? - Oh heavens! It should have a soil,
this German! I should be able to find my people! What a glorious
people it ought to become. But to this people only could I
belong. -
(...) it was Schopenhauer who first defined the position of Music
among the fine arts with philosophic clearness, ascribing to it a totally
different nature from that of either plastic or poetic art. He starts
from wonder at Music's speaking a language immediately intelligible by
everyone, since it needs no whit of intermediation through abstract
concepts (Begriffe); which completely distinguishes it from Poetry, in
the first place, whose sole material consists of concepts, employed by it
to visualise the Idea.
Then let us sail across the sea, and here and there found a young
Germany, let us fructify it with the products of our toil and striving,
and let us beget and bring up the noblest and most godlike children: but
let us do better than the Spanish, who turned the New World into a
papal slaughterhouse, and better than the English, who have turned
it into a shop. Let us make it German and glorious; from its rising to
its setting, the sun shall look down upon a beautiful, free Germany, and
on the borders of the daughterlands, as upon those of their mother, no
downtrodden, unfree people shall dwell, the rays of German freedom
and German gentleness shall warm and transfigure the Cossack and
the Frenchman, the Bushman and the Chinese.
The Italian made as much of the Antique his own, as he could copy and
remodel; the Frenchman borrowed from this remodelling, in his turn,
whatever caressed his national sense for elegance of Form: the German was
the first to apprehend its purely-human originality (...) Through its
inmost understanding of the Antique, the German spirit arrived at the
capability of restoring the Purely-human itself to its pristine
freedom; not employing the antique form to display a certain given
`stuff', but moulding the necessary new form itself through an employment
of the antique conception of the world.
Only on the shoulders of this great social movement can true Art lift
itself from its present state of civilised barbarianism, and take its
post of honour. Each has a common goal, and the twain can only reach it
when they recognise it jointly. This goal is the strong fair
Man...
True Drama is only conceivable as proceeding from a common urgency of
every art towards the most direct appeal to a common
public. In this Drama, each separate art can only bare its utmost
secret to their common public through a mutual parleying with the other
arts; for the purpose of each separate branch of art can only be fully
attained by the reciprocal agreement and co-operation of all the branches
in their common message.
Who, then, will be the Artist of the Future? The poet? The
performer? The musician? The plastician? - Let us say it in one word: the
Folk. That selfsame Folk to whom we owe the only genuine
Art-work, still living even in our modern memory, however much distorted
by our restorations; to whom alone we owe all Art itself.
I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and
apostles; - I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one,
indivisible Art; - I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives
within the hearts of all illumined men; - I believe that he who once has
bathed in the sublime delights of this high Art, is consecrate to Her for
ever, and never can deny Her; - I believe that through Art all men are
saved...
I have long been convinced that my artistic ideal stands or falls with
Germany. Only the Germany that we love and desire can help us achieve
that ideal.
...we are bound some day to reach a point, in the contest between French
civilisation and the German spirit, where it will become a question of
the continuance of the German Princes. If the German Princes are not the
faithful guardians of the German spirit; if, consciously or
unconsciously, they help French civilisation to triumph over that German
spirit, so woefully misprised and disregarded by them: then their days
are numbered, let the fiat come from here or there.
"I am bad for the Napoleons", R. says. "When I was six months old there
was the Battle of Leipzig, and now Fidi is hacking up the whole of
France."
Abbreviations
hansalmi@utu.fi