59.
Wagner imitates himself again and again-mannerisms. That is why he was the quickest among musicians to be imitated. It is so easy.
60.
Mendelssohn who lacked the power of radically staggering one (incidentally this was the talent of the Jews in the Old Testament), makes up for this by the things which were his own, that is to say: freedom within the law, and n.o.ble emotions kept within the limits of beauty.
61.
_Liszt_, the first _representative_ of all musicians, but _no musician_.
He was the prince, not the statesman. The conglomerate of a hundred musicians" souls, but not enough of a personality to cast his own shadow upon them.
62.
The most wholesome phenomenon is _Brahms_, in whose music there is more German blood than in that of Wagner"s. With these words I would say something complimentary, but by no means wholly so.
63.
In Wagner"s writings there is no greatness or peace, but presumption. Why?
64.
_Wagner"s Style._-The habit he acquired, from his earliest days, of having his say in the most important matters without a sufficient knowledge of them, has rendered him the obscure and incomprehensible writer that he is.
In addition to this he aspired to imitating the witty newspaper article, and finally acquired that presumption which readily joins hands with carelessness "and, behold, it was very good."
65.
I am alarmed at the thought of how much pleasure I could find in Wagner"s style, which is so careless as to be unworthy of such an artist.
66.
In Wagner, as in Brahms, there is a blind denial of the healthy, in his followers this denial is deliberate and conscious.
67.
Wagner"s art is for those who are conscious of an essential blunder in the conduct of their lives. They feel either that they have checked a great nature by a base occupation, or squandered it through idle pursuits, a conventional marriage, &c. &c.
In this quarter the condemnation of the world is the outcome of the condemnation of the ego.
68.
Wagnerites do not wish to alter themselves in any way, they live discontentedly in insipid, conventional and brutal circ.u.mstances-only at intervals does art have to raise them as by magic above these things.
Weakness of will.
69.
Wagner"s art is for scholars who do not dare to become philosophers: they feel discontented with themselves and are generally in a state of obtuse stupefaction-from time to time they take a bath in the _opposite conditions_.
70.
I feel as if I had recovered from an illness: with a feeling of unutterable joy I think of Mozart"s _Requiem_. I can once more enjoy simple fare.
71.
I understand Sophocles" development through and through-it was the repugnance to pomp and pageantry.
72.