The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms

The book is a critique of Richard Wagner and the announcement of Nietzsche's rupture with the German artist, who had involved himself too much, in Nietzsche's eyes, in the Völkisch movement and antisemitism. His music is no longer represented as a possible "philosophical affect," and Wagner is ironically compared to Georges Bizet. However, Wagner is presented by Nietzsche as only a particular symptom of a broader "disease" which is affecting Europe, that is nihilism. The book shows Nietzsche as a capable music-critic, and provides the setting for some of his further reflections on the nature of art and on its relationship to the future health of humanity.