What is Music?

"" Nietzsche believes that the issue is at the core of the German national character, and may be its salvation. He is "convinced that art represents the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life."" Nietzsche then concludes the preface with dedicating his essay to Wagner. By associating himself with the great German composer, Wagner, Nietzsche tries to keep people from writing him off as a flake and attempt to establish himself as a serious philosopher on an important subject (Cockburn; Nietzsche 21,32).
             Nietzsche begins his essay with the reference to the duality between the Greek gods of Apollonian and Dionysian. He believes that the progression of art throughout the years is directly bound to this duality. This will be the basis for his theory on the aesthetics of art. One problem with Nietzsche's approach is that he disregards the evolution of music before the time of the Greeks and believes the Greeks to be the aesthetic model. Not proposing this as a theory but as an "immediate certainty of vision,"" he uses the myths of the Greek gods to explain the development of art. Nietzsche assumes the two gods, Apollonian and Dionysian, to be at opposite ends of the art spectrum without any sort of evidence. Apollo was the god of restraint and of all plastic energies. Apollonian art is imagistic and based on sculpture. Before the arrival of the Dionysian, Apollo ruled the Greeks. Nietzsche describes Greek art at this time as being nave and only concerned with appearances. He refers to these appearances as everything that is seen around us and masks us from the underlying true reality. This concept of appearances is very important for the Greeks because it shields them from the full truth of human suffering which would crush us with its magnitude. In the Apollonian art of sculpture, the observer never truly united with the art and was always in quiet contemplation with it, creating the shield of appearance.