Music, The Birth of Tragedy, and Nietzche's ... - Nietzsche Circle

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comes to “the beginning of the baritone recitative ‘O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!’” 65
everything turns on how the singer sings the word Töne. The singer can sing “the pitches
literally, as notated,” or else, to continue Hinton’s contrast, the singer can “add an
unnotated but implied appoggiatura on the first syllable.” 66 The alternate option is there
as Hinton observes just because it is indicated in the score itself: “in the versions of the
recitative presented earlier in the movement by the lower strings, the appoggiatura is
written out.” 67 Hinton emphasizes Beethoven’s irony but he is also interested in what our
interpretations tell us about ourselves, and how we hear such possibilities, whether in the
case of scholars but and more importantly in the case of composers such as Wagner and
of course in the case of performance practice. Thus Hinton cites Nietzsche, duly
described along with the whole of substance of The Birth of Tragedy as being “otherwise
pro-Wagnerian,” as calling attention to these very words — and, as we might say, to the
tonality of Töne — in Nietzsche’s “On Music and Word.” 68 Thus Hinton observes that
Nietzsche “is the only commentator to have picked up on the ironic significance of
Beethoven’s reference to tones, as opposed to words which Wagner found so critical.” 69
To explore the range of these connections, the penultimate section of this essay
reprises Nietzsche’s own research reflections on the relation between music and word,
lyric poetry, ancient Greek music, and tragedy.
The Words and Music of Ancient Greek
“The theater of Dionysus is not in the Agora.”
— Nicole Loraux, The Mourning Voice 70
Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music continues to be
misconstrued — when it is considered or construed at all — to the extent that Nietzsche
scholars are inclined to suppose it singularly irrelevant to Nietzsche’s overall
philosophical project. Thus most Nietzsche scholars are sure that Nietzsche drops the
theme and moves on to become a moral or political or cultural theorist. For their own
part, classicists suppose the book irrelevant with respect to its topic concerning the theme
of ancient tragedy and of ancient music. 71
Yet Nietzsche’s first book remains central to his thinking and what is more he never
abandons the book’s thesis, particularly with respect to the role of music in his thinking. 72