Beyond Good and Evil · Chapter
The Twilight of European Taste: From Mozart to Romanticism explained
The chapter contrasts the enduring, refined European taste embodied by Mozart with the transitional, Romantic era that followed.
What happens
The chapter contrasts the enduring, refined European taste embodied by Mozart with the transitional, Romantic era that followed. It positions Beethoven as a figure of rupture between an old soul and a new one, reflecting the revolutionary hopes of Rousseau and Napoleon. Later German Romantic composers like Weber, Marschner, and Wagner are dismissed as theatrical and second-rate, while Mendelssohn is a fleeting episode. Schumann is criticized as a dangerously introspective, merely national event, marking a decline from music that spoke for the soul of Europe.
Themes in this chapter
Critique of Modernity
Laments the decline from a unified, noble European cultural taste (Mozart) into fragmented, nationalistic, and second-rate Romantic expressions, viewing it as a loss of depth and soul.
Nobility and Order of Rank
Implies a hierarchy in art and culture: Mozart and Beethoven represent higher, European events, while later Romantic composers (especially Schumann) represent a decline into the petty, national, and 'second-rate.'
Characters to notice
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Represents the last echo of a great, centuries-old European taste; his rococo style, tenderness, and elegance still speak to something in us.
- Ludwig van Beethoven
An 'intermediate event' between a decaying old soul and an over-young future; his music bathed in the twilight of loss and extravagant hope of the Rousseau-to-Napoleon era.
- Richard Wagner
Mentioned dismissively; his 'Tannhäuser' is cited as an example of extinct, though not yet forgotten, Romantic music.
- Felix Mendelssohn
The 'halcyon master' admired for his light, pure, happy soul but quickly forgotten; a beautiful episode in German music.
- Robert Schumann
Critiqued as the last to found a school; his Romanticism is seen as a relief to have overcome. His introspective, 'petty' taste made German music a merely national affair, losing its European voice.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Part of the European 'fate' and sentiment (dreaming, revolution) reflected in Beethoven's music; his language now sounds strange to modern ears.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
The figure before whom Europe 'almost fell down in adoration'; part of the historical interlude (Rousseau to Napoleon) that Beethoven's music captures.
- Lord Byron
Cited alongside Rousseau, Schiller, and Shelley as having a language that sounds strange now; part of the collective European fate that sang in Beethoven.
Key passages
“Beethoven is the intermediate event between an old mellow soul that is constantly breaking down, and a future over-young soul that is always coming”
Beethoven's music stands at a midpoint, capturing both the decay of an old cultural order and the restless, immature hope of a new one.
Highlights Beethoven's transitional, historically specific role.
“Schumann was already merely a German event in music, and no longer a European event... with Schumann German music was threatened with its greatest danger, that of losing the voice for the soul of Europe”
Schumann's music marked a retreat into national introspection, endangering music's capacity to express universal, European spirit.
Critique of cultural parochialism and decline from a European standard.
