In the year 1851, Richard Wagner had his first contact with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, a fact that was followed soon by his proclaimed and somewhat surprising "conversion" to schopenhauerianism. Tweny years later, his debt to Schopenhauer is reaffirmed in "Beethoven", a comemorative writing in which are to be found the outlines of a philosophy of music - claimed by the composer to be based on Schopenhauer's aesthetics - that had great influence in Nietzsche's theoretical elaboration of the dionysiac, as it appears in "The birth of Tragedy". My work aims primarily at investigating to what extent the musical aesthetics outlined in "Beethoven" is actually compatible with that presented in "The world as Will and representation". The pointing out of remarkable differences between the two aesthetic conceptions gives then rise to some reflexions concerning the character of the relations between Wagner, Schopenhauer and the young Nietzsche.
Music; aesthetics; Wagner; Schopenhauer; Nietzsche