The German musical genius Richard Wagner
(1811 1883) could be considered to be one of the ideological fathers of
early 20th century German nationalism. He was well suited for this role.
Highly intelligent, sophisticated, complex, capable of imagining whole
systems of humanistic philosophy, and with an intense need to
communicate his ideas, he created great operas which, in addition to
their artistic merits, served the peculiar role of promoting a
jingoistic, chauvenistic kind of Germanism. There are things in his
operas that only a German can fully understand, especially if he would
like to see his country closed off to outsiders. It is unlikely,
however, that Wagner expected these ideas to achieve any popularity.
Time and again he rails against philistines, irrational people and
politicians in his letters. With great exasperation and often depression
he expressed little hope that his country would ever emerge out of its
"philistinism" and embrace "rational" ideas such as he propagated. Add
to this the great difficulties he had in getting his works performed,
and one might assume that he felt himself to be composing, most of the
time, to audiences of bricks. Yes, his great, intensely beloved friend
Liszt believed in, fully understood, and greatly appreciated Wagner's
works, but Liszt was just one in a million, and even he, as Wagner
suggested, associated with a base coterie incapable of assimilating
Wagnerian messages. Considering the sorry state of music and
intellectualism in Wagner's time and setting, he surely would have been
surprised if his operas and his ideas achieved any wide currency. That
he continued to work with intense energy to develop his ideas, to fix
them into musical form and to propagate them, while knowing that
probably no sizeable population would ever likely take note of them, and
while believing that his existence as an underappreciated, rational
individual in an irrational world was absurd and futile, is a testimony
to the enormous will power of this "ubermensch."
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