Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Henry Lewis.
London Records recording. Printed in U.S.A
Also Sprach Zarathustra:
1) Introduction (or Sunrise)
2) Of Those in the Background World
3) Of the Great Longing
4) Of Joys and Passions
5) The Song of the Grave
6) Of Science and Learning
7) The Convalescent
8) The Dance Song
9) Song of the Night Wanderer
I am to find no recognition as a composer during my lifetime. As long as I am the ‘Mahler’ wandering among you, a ‘man among men’ I must content myself with an ‘all too human’ reception as a creative figure. Only when I have shaken off this earthly dust will there be justice done. I am what Nietzsche calls an ‘untimely’ one…The true ‘timely one’ is Richard Strauss. That is why he already enjoys immortality here on earth. “” Gustav Mahler to a critic, 1906
Remarkable how so soon after Nietzsche’s death (August 1900) did his cargo of ideas become a necessary stop for grave-robbers looking for one liners and sharp-shooting aphorisms to pepper into passing conversations in need of momentary philosophical depth. That Mahler of all people—the most pious and popular apostle of Wagnerism and its appeals to a democratic approach to the genre, who wanted to do for the symphony what Wagner did for the opera (and succeeded)—should regard himself as untimely is a funny thing in at least one way.
Richard Strauss (by Jeremy Lewis, for Blue Riband)
Like a long list Western thinkers and tinkerers in that century, Strauss too made away with a basket-full of Nietzscheisms, but his use of it is in my opinion better than most inasmuch as it resulted in music that went on to forge a life of its own. I used to try and trace the outline of the passages that each tone poem makes reference to, but now hear in it nothing of Nietzsche, or of Zarathustra, but merely of Strauss. I think that’s a compliment to body to a philosophical body of work, that it should inspire art that eventually breaks free of its inspiration.
That said, a happy new year to you and yours. Out of that long blistering year and before committing wholeheartedly to this one—I wanted to take this brief glance at what I found most significant in 2020. That is, the aspects of the social turmoil that remains within our control. The list could be exhausting but is summarized here as the three lessons learned on social equity in 2020. All of these lessons are reliant on just a bit courage on the part of each individual in order to bring it into action:
1) Education: while I will always find myself on the side of the argument for improving and using our institutions of education, as well as self-education, to combat racial bias and the racialization of minority folks here and elsewhere—what must also be said is that, by now, our collective consciousness has a sufficient amount of info. What we need henceforth is the courage to act on what we know when we are met with racial discrimination in any shade; to challenge the not so white lie of whiteness at every opportunity.
2) Pedigree: I credit a conversation with pianist Stewart Goodyear that I had in back in September (for the Remote Podcast) for crystalizing what I’ve always felt true—that so much of classical music, the performing arts by extensions, relies on pedigree as the currency of its transactions. So much of the industry relies on the depiction and cultivation of a eurocentric pedigree, such that even a remarkable artist like Nicholas Rose—checking every possible box of a classical artist, except for that of pedigree—is unfairly tasked with justifying the validity of his presence at our National Ballet. It requires courage on the part of the part of the gatekeepers of the classical arts to uproot this subconscious (and often conscious) overarching reliance on whiteness as the de facto archetype of the classical artist.
3) Value: 2020 left no doubt about the high degree to which the creative work of BIPOC artists is valued in the performing arts while there are so many examples of these artists themselves being devalued. In the same way that pedigree is a currency of transaction, the industry subconsciously operates with the presumption that BIPOC artists are mostly just happy to be there—that their presence hinges precariously on the ambiguity of their otherness—and thus compensation for their work is in stark contrast to the value of that work. Here too courage is needed: both by BIPOC artist—to name your worth and stick with it—and those in leadership roles at our arts institutions, to consciously expel this subconscious devaluation.
In my own small but hopefully effective way, these will be the main points of focus of my activity in the performing arts this year.
SONG OF THE WEEK: ‘Blue Healer’ — Birdtalker
Enter sadness, with your rain boots in blue
Since I can remember I’ve been runnin’ from you
But this time you sat your ass down with no intent to move
You ain’t no Blue Healer
Perhaps the most often swiped Nietzschean trope of all is his concept of the eternal return of the same, which first found full expression in a rather rudmentary segment in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra, titled ‘On The Vision and the Riddle’. This vision involves a heated exchanged between the fictional Zarathustra and an equally fictional ‘dwarf’, it is this exchange that gives rise to the metaphorical explanation of eternal return. Standing at the gateway at which two paths converge, Zarathustra looks down one, and then the other, pointing at how each one extends indefinitely: “And this slow spider that creeps in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things—must not all of us have been here before?” So an and so forth.
But it’s the conversation preceding this famous declaration that I find more striking: the ‘dwarf’ is Nietzsche’s physical manifestation of what he called the ‘spirit of gravity’, the lead-heavy nihilism that, in the face of the problem of eternity and consequent eternal recurrence, believes that everything rises and falls is in vein. There is no forward, no progress, nor hereafter, nor up or down, nor high or low…
Striding mutely over the mocking clatter of pebbles, crushing the rock that caused it to slip; thus my foot forced its way upward. Upward—in defiance of the spirit that pulled it downward, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy. Upward—even though he sat atop me, half dwarf, half mole, lame, paralyzing, dripping lead into my ear, lead-drop thoughts into my brain. “” ‘On the Vision and the Riddle’, TSZ
The problem of eternal recurrence is actually preceded by it’s solution, at least the solution prescribed by it’s author: courage. There’s an intuitive logic to that sequence, for Nietzsche—indeed all of us—would have to first feel this ‘gravity’ before we could understand an intellectualize it. It is this feeling that requires courage to, in a sense, evict the weight that sits on your shoulder and whispers the uselessness of this and that virtue:
But there is something in me that I call courage: this so far has slain my every discourage. This courage at last commanded me to stand still and to say: “Dwarf—you or I!” —…
But the human being is the most courageous animal, and so it overcame every animal. Without sounding brass it even overcame every pain, but human pain is the deepest.
Courage also slays dizziness at the abyss; and where do human beings not stand at the abyss? Is seeing itself not—seeing the abyss?
Courage is the best slayer; courage slays even pity. But pity is the deepest abyss, and as deeply as human beings look into life, so deeply too they look into suffering. “” ‘On the Vision and the Riddle’, TSZ
The funny thing about courage is how wholly irrational it is, irrational because it takes courage to be courageous—perhaps that’s where the ‘riddle’ comes in.
That’s my main takeway from 2020: above all, courage is needed. Courage to evict the shitty but recurrent thoughts and habits that tell us there is no forward to get to. That the same immemorial problems of bigotry and superstition must recur eternally without improvement.
Another thing too is needed, especially after a year like that, or after any period of relentless suffering—healing. I have a tremendous belief in the human ability to heal. It is this ability that makes Medicine possible, and Music invaluable. It is this belief that lead me to this journal and to make music the meter by which I mark the passage of time. I’m applying to med school this year with this selfsame belief.
Listening to this song, I couldn’t help but think of Nietzsche’s metaphorical dwarf, and the courage required to commit unreservedly to healing.
Throwback to: YR3, WEEK23 — YR2, WEEK23
Click here for the full 2020/2021 roster of selected recordings