the impression which it is to produce. Its endless wealth of detail is in nowise to reveal itself merely to the connoisseur, but also to the most naïve layman, if only he has come to the needful collectedness of spirit. First of all, then, it should exert on him somewhat the effect produced by a noble forest, of a summer evening, on the lonely visitant who has just left the city’s din behind; the peculiar stamp of this impression – which I leave the reader to elaborate in all its psychological effects – is that of a silence growing more and more alive. For the general object of the artwork it may be quite sufficient to have produced this root-impression, and by it to lead the hearer unawares and attune him to the further aim; he therewith takes the higher tendence unconsciously into himself. But when, overwhelmed by this first general impression, the forest’s visitor sits down to ponder; when, the last burden of the city’s hubbub cast aside, he girds the forces of his soul to a new power of observing; when, as if hearing with new senses, he listens more and more intently – he perceives with ever greater plainness the infinite diversity of voices waking in the wood. Ever and ever a new, a different voice peers forth, a voice he thinks he has never heard as yet: as they wax in number, they grow in strange distinctness; louder and louder rings the wood:; and many though the voices be, the individual strains he hears, the glinting, overbrimming stream of sound seems again to him but just the one great forest-melody: that melody which from the very first had chained him to devotion, as once the deep-blue firmament of night had chained his eye when brighter and ever clearer he beheld its countless multitude of stars, the longer he had plunged his gaze into the spectacle.” [690W-{9/60}Music of the Future, PW Vol. III, p. 339]
[691W-{9/60}Music of the Future, PW Vol. III, p. 343-344]
[P. 343] {anti-FEUER} “The only thing that can trouble the Artist, is the question how far this public has become infected by the critical element, thereby losing the ingenuousness of purely-human insight (Anschauung). (…) [P. 344](…) My aim here, then, is to engross the Public in the dramatic action before all else; and in such a manner that not for an instant may it be compelled to lose sight of that action, but, on the contrary, the whole musical adornment may seem to it a mere means for displaying that action.” [691W-{9/60}Music of the Future, PW Vol. III, p. 343-344]
[692W-{6/15/62}Letter to Malvida Von Meysenbug: SLRW, p. 546]
[P. 546] {anti-FEUER} “My dearest Malvida, this much is certain, that the myth of the Messiah is the most profoundly characteristic of all myths for all our earthly striving. The Jews expected someone who would liberate them, a Messiah who was supposed to restore the kingdom of David and bring not only justice but, more especially, greatness, power, and safety from oppression. Well, everything went as predicted, his birth in Bethlehem, of the line of David, the prophecy of the three wise men, etc., his triumphant welcome to Jerusalem, palms strewn before him, etc. – there he stood, everyone listened, and he proclaimed to them: ‘My kingdom is not of this world! Renounce your desires, that is the only way to be redeemed and freed!’ – Believe me, all our political freedom fighters strike me as being uncannily like the Jews.” [692W-{6/15/62}Letter to Malvida Von Meysenbug: SLRW, p. 546]
