If we consider the magnitude of the Richard Wagner's dramatic work, it will be not strange to realize that his theoretical texts are almost entirely unknown. However, one of his writings, entitled Beethoven, exercised decisive influence upon the composition of The birth of tragedy, a famous book regarded nowadays as an essential moment of the history of aesthetics. The purpose of this paper is to examine this Wagner's writing aiming to unriddle which determinative motive brought Nietzsche to mention it enthusiastically in the original foreword of his first work, dedicated to whom which, until that moment, were his master and friend and exercised upon him an influence both musical and theoretical.
Richard Wagner; Friedrich Nietzsche; Beethoven-Schrift; German music