COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The content of this website, including text and images, is the property of The Nietzsche Channel. Reproduction in any form is strictly prohibited. © The Nietzsche Channel. [On the Musical Composition, "Ermanaric."]1
September-October 1862. Excerpt from:
Friedrich Nietzsche in Words and Pictures.
Appendix 2. Chronology of Nietzsche's Music.
Translation Copyright 2012, The Nietzsche Channel.
Nietzsche's Writings as a Student.
Translation Copyright 2012, The Nietzsche Channel.
It was Michaelmas2 1861 when I started and
finished in a few days the extant fragment of the
Ermanaric Symphony; written for two pianos after the
model of the Dante Symphony,3 with which,
shortly before, I had acquainted myself. It was a time
when the Ermanaric piece moved me more intensely
than ever, I was still too deeply moved for poetry and
not yet distanced enough to create an objective drama;
but in music I succeed in expressing the mood that the
Ermanaric saga utterly incarnated in me. Nevertheless,
I was still undecided as to whether I should christen the
piece "Ermanaric Symphony" or "Serbia," since I had
planned to include the emotions of the Slavic people in
a composition, like Liszt did in "Hungaria," moreover,
since I could not yet impartially analyze and only
guessed what I had expressed therein. Now it's just one
year later when I find precisely in it the moods, the
changes of feelings which push and press themselves,
often suddenly and harshly, in which the central figures
of the Ermanaric piece work their way through and
then fulfill my soul.
Now with the revision of the fragment I have tried to
reflect a more precise version that was often only
something outlined in the first version. I inserted some
missing moments,4 the ending in
particular is entirely new and its ferocity surpasses by
far what I presented in the first version.
However, I have depicted neither Goths nor Germans,
they are—I dare assert it—Hungarians; the material is
borne from the [....]
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