S T.
Fraeulein Else
1 4 G — — — — — K a —
box 5/1
338
GERMAN LETTER
distinguished; the books are bound in flexible linen which was
obtained through a special competition, and are printed in beautiful
Roman type on glazed paper thin enough for a work of a thousand
or more pages to be compressed into one handy volume.
In closing, I should like to speak briefly of a publication, as
curious as it is impressive, which might have some interest for
Americans. For some time I have been guarding a treasure: it
is a veritable copy of the score of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde!
It was given to me on my birthday; daily I do it reverence. 1
will not say it is the one genuine original score of this highly devel¬
oped opera—for that is in Bayreuth. But, in a magnificent bind¬
ing, contrived with the aid of the most refined technique, it is so
perfect a facsimile of Wagner’s minute-colossal manuscript that
one needs no imagination to accept without effort, its authenticity
and originality and to feel himself bewilderingly in the possession
of something holy. These scattered groups of precise Gothic notes
signify something ultimate, supreme, profoundly precious—some¬
thing to which Nietzsche bade for us a final farewell, a farewell
until death: they signify a world which, for reasons of conscience,
we Germans of the present are forbidden to love over much.
This is the pinnacle, the consummation, of romanticism, its fur¬
thest artistic expansion, the imperialism of a world-conquering
oblivion—of an intoxicating self-annihilation. And all of this is
uncongenial to the soul of Europe which, if it is to be saved to life
and reason, requires some hard work and some of that self-conquest
which Nietzsche upheld with heroism and exemplariness. Never,
to those at least who were born to love that world which the
younger men hardly know—has the contrast between aesthetic
charm and ethical responsibility been greater than to-day. Let us
acknowledge it as the source of irony! A love of life defends
itself ironically against the fascination of death; but in art it is
uncertain whether an irony which turns against life and virtue
and knows how to treasure the allurements of forbidden love is not
indeed a more religious thing. And so it happens, that we in our
work-room, have formally made of the facsimile of the original
score of Tristan, a melancholy and ironic cult.
The Drei-Masken-Verlag in Munich is the publisher of these
remarkable editions. A reproduction of the Meistersinger manu¬
script preceded Tristan, and a Parsifal is soon to follow.
TnoMas MANN
Fraeulein Else
1 4 G — — — — — K a —
box 5/1
338
GERMAN LETTER
distinguished; the books are bound in flexible linen which was
obtained through a special competition, and are printed in beautiful
Roman type on glazed paper thin enough for a work of a thousand
or more pages to be compressed into one handy volume.
In closing, I should like to speak briefly of a publication, as
curious as it is impressive, which might have some interest for
Americans. For some time I have been guarding a treasure: it
is a veritable copy of the score of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde!
It was given to me on my birthday; daily I do it reverence. 1
will not say it is the one genuine original score of this highly devel¬
oped opera—for that is in Bayreuth. But, in a magnificent bind¬
ing, contrived with the aid of the most refined technique, it is so
perfect a facsimile of Wagner’s minute-colossal manuscript that
one needs no imagination to accept without effort, its authenticity
and originality and to feel himself bewilderingly in the possession
of something holy. These scattered groups of precise Gothic notes
signify something ultimate, supreme, profoundly precious—some¬
thing to which Nietzsche bade for us a final farewell, a farewell
until death: they signify a world which, for reasons of conscience,
we Germans of the present are forbidden to love over much.
This is the pinnacle, the consummation, of romanticism, its fur¬
thest artistic expansion, the imperialism of a world-conquering
oblivion—of an intoxicating self-annihilation. And all of this is
uncongenial to the soul of Europe which, if it is to be saved to life
and reason, requires some hard work and some of that self-conquest
which Nietzsche upheld with heroism and exemplariness. Never,
to those at least who were born to love that world which the
younger men hardly know—has the contrast between aesthetic
charm and ethical responsibility been greater than to-day. Let us
acknowledge it as the source of irony! A love of life defends
itself ironically against the fascination of death; but in art it is
uncertain whether an irony which turns against life and virtue
and knows how to treasure the allurements of forbidden love is not
indeed a more religious thing. And so it happens, that we in our
work-room, have formally made of the facsimile of the original
score of Tristan, a melancholy and ironic cult.
The Drei-Masken-Verlag in Munich is the publisher of these
remarkable editions. A reproduction of the Meistersinger manu¬
script preceded Tristan, and a Parsifal is soon to follow.
TnoMas MANN