Hear Classical Music Composed by Friedrich Nietzsche

A philoso­pher per­haps extra broad­ly recognized for his prodi­gious mus­tache than for the vari­eties of his thought, Friedrich Niet­zsche usually appears to be mis­learn greater than learn. Even some­one like Michel Fou­cault may gloss over a cru­cial reality about Nietzsche’s physique of labor: Fou­cault remarked in an unpub­lished inter­view that Nietzsche’s “gained­der­ful concepts” had been “utilized by the Nazi Par­ty.” However that use, he neglect­ed to males­tion, took place by a scheme hatched by Nietzsche’s sis­ter, after his males­tal col­lapse and demise, to edit, change, and oth­er­sensible manip­u­late the thinker’s work in a means The Tele­graph deemed “crim­i­nal.” Fou­cault could not have recognized the total con­textual content, however Niet­zsche had about as a lot sym­pa­thy for fas­cism as he did for Christianity—each rea­sons for his break with com­pos­er Richard Wag­n­er.

What Niet­zsche beloved most was music. Even within the wake of this scan­dal, with Niet­zsche ful­ly reha­bil­i­tat­ed on the schol­ar­ly lev­el at the least, the philoso­pher is gen­er­al­ly learn piece­meal, used to prop up some ide­ol­o­gy or crit­i­cal the­o­ry or anoth­er, a ten­den­cy his anti-sys­tem­at­ic, apho­ris­tic work conjures up.

A extra holis­tic strategy yields two impor­tant gen­er­al obser­va­tions: Niet­zsche discovered the mun­dane work of pol­i­tics and nation­al­ist con­quest, with its trib­al­ism and ethical pre­ten­sions, thor­ough­ly dis­style­ful. As a substitute, he con­sid­ered the cre­ative work of artists, writ­ers, and musi­cians, in addition to sci­en­tists, of para­mount impor­tance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playlist

Niet­zsche nearly entered med­i­cine and was him­self an artist: “earlier than he engaged him­self ful­ly as a philoso­pher, he had already cre­at­ed a sub­stan­tial out­put as poet and com­pos­er,” writes Albany Records. In an 1887 let­ter writ­ten three years earlier than his demise, Niet­zsche claimed, “There has nev­er been a philoso­pher who has been in essence a musi­cian to such an extent as I’m,” although he additionally admit­ted he “could be a thor­ough­ly unsuc­cess­ful musi­cian.” In any case, he hoped that at the least a few of his com­po­si­tions would grow to be recognized and heard as com­ple­males­tary to his philo­soph­i­cal challenge.

Now seri­ous learn­ers of Niet­zsche, or these sim­ply curi­ous about his musi­cian­ship, can hear a few of his com­po­si­tions on-line. The music ranges from spright­ly to pen­sive, roman­tic to mourn­ful, and a few of it appears to return proper out of the Protes­tant hym­nals he grew up with because the son of a Luther­an min­is­ter. Niet­zsche com­posed music by­out his life—a com­plete chronol­o­gy spans the years 1854, when he was solely ten, to 1887. See The Niet­zsche Chan­nel for a thor­ough list of pub­lished Niet­zsche record­ings and sheet music.

Word: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our web site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Ancient Philo­soph­i­cal Song Recon­struct­ed and Played for the First Time in 1,000 Years

Lis­ten to Music Playlists to Help You Study Like Niet­zsche, Socrates, Kant & Oth­er Great Thinkers

Hear Friedrich Nietzsche’s Clas­si­cal Piano Com­po­si­tions: They’re Apho­ris­tic Like His Phi­los­o­phy

Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for Writ­ing with Style

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Life & Thought

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based mostly in Durham, NC.