Caryatides

Bucharest

 

Wagner (2)

Wagner's operas tend towards magic delusion, to what Schopenhauer calls 'The outside of the worthless commodity', in short towards phantasmagoria. This is the basis of the primacy of harmonic and instrumental sound in his music. The great phantasmagorias that recur again and again occupy a central position in his work (...) The phantasmagorical nature of the Venusberg music can be analysed technically. Its characteristic sound is created by the device of diminution. A diminished forte predominates, the image of loudness from afar. (...) The Venusberg appears to Tannhäuser diminished in size. It is reminiscent of the distorting mirror effects of the Tanagra theatre that can still be found in fairgrounds and suburban cabarets. (...) the concept of illusion as the absolute reality of the unreal grows in importance. It sums up the unromantic side of the phantasmagoria: phantasmagoria as the point at which aesthetic appearance becomes a function of the character of the commodity. As a commodity it purveys illusions. The absolute reality of the unreal is nothing but the reality of a phenomenon that not only strives unceasingly to spirit away its own origins in human labour, but also, inseparably from this process and in thrall to exchange value, assiduously emphasizes its use value, stressing that this is its authentic reality, that it is 'no imitation' — and all this in order to further the cause of exchange value. In Wagner's day the consumer goods on display turned their phenomenal side seductively towards the mass of consumers while diverting attention from their merely phenomenal character, from the fact that they were beyond reach. Similarly, in the phantasmagoria, Wagner's operas tend to become commodities. Their tableaux assume the characters of wares on display.

Theodor Adorno, Verssuch über Wagner (1952),  

In Search of Wagner, trans. Rodney Livingstone, Verso, 2005, pp. 74-79

Entrance to the Venusberg

Wagner

At that time I was a great Wagnerian. I never lost an opportunity to hear Wagner's music either in the theatre or at concerts. Today I have lost my love for that music in which I feel something mawkish and immoral, something which is also perhaps bad. 

 

Giorgio de Chirico, Memorie della mia vita (1962),  

The Memoirs of Giorgio de Chirico, trans. Margaret Crosland, 

Peter Owen, London, 1971

 

 

Library-cities (2)

If the world lasts another thousand years and as many books are written as today, then I think entire library-cities will come into being; but time's attrition and various causes will destroy many of them. 

 

Godfrey William Leibnitz, Otium Hanoveranum, ed. Joachim Friedrich Feller, 

Leipzig: Johann Christian Martin, 1718.

 

Si mundus adhuc mille annos durabit, et tot libri, ut hodie, conscribentur, vereor, ne e Bibliothecis integræ civitates fiant; Sed iniuria temporum et casus varii multas perdent. 

 

Otium Hanoveranum, Sive, Miscellanea, Ex ore et schedis Illustris Viri, piæ memoriæ, Godofr. Guilielmi Leibnitii, S. Cæs. Maj. Consiliarii, et S. Reg. Maj. Britanniarum â Consiliis Justitiæ intimis, nec non à scribenda Historia, Quondam notata et descripta, Cum ipsi in colligendis et excerpendis rebus ad Historiam Brunsvicensem pertinentibus operam navaret, Joachimus Fridericus Fellerus, Secretarius Ducalis Saxo-Vinariensis. Additæ sunt coronidis loco Epistolæ Gallicæ amoebeæ Leibnitii et Pelissonii de Tolerantia Religionum et de controversiis quibusdam Theologicis, jampridem editæ, nunc recusa. Quibus præmissum est supplementu vitæ Leibnitianæ. 

Cum Privilegio Reg. Polon. et Elect. Saxon. Lipsiæ M DCC XIIX. 

Impensis Joann. Christiani Martini.