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| In the salon at La rue des moulins : Toulouse Lautrec |
16.1 I could not help accentuating my farewell with the
mention of his name…He did not mention mine… -> Once more emphasizing the one
way relationship SZ – AL
16.2 And yes, it was in some sense a break… All previous
chapters form together a first part : end of Youth, AL flinging himself in thr
arms of music and the courses of life of
SZ and AL splitting
16.3 What now follows is a letter…
The letter is one of the two bigger chunks of text where we
hear AL’s voice directly…( insofar of course that AL has rendered it verbatim )
The letter is written in an “antiquated prose”, in a German
of the 16th century ( see chapter number ) , the German in which Luther wrote,
the German in which the original Faustbuch ( not the one of Goethe ! ) is
written.
It sounds like a voice from the past !
Why ?
According to SZ :…intended as a parody, …an allusion of the
linguistic deportment of Ehrenfried Kumpf ( who speaks and acts like Luther )…
expresses ( Al’s ) personality a self-stylization, a manifestation of his inner
disposition …a tendency to hide behind and find fulfillment in parody…
16.4 Peter strasse Leipzig : a street known for it’s great
Fair
The Friday after the purification : when googled, more links
to Moslim traditions than Christians… anyone know why ?
16.5 Comparaison of Lepzig ( city of 7 hundred thousands
souls ) with Ninevah
The book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of
destruction.
The Autumn fair is going at full swing at the moment of AL’s
arrival adding to the confusion of the big city
16.6 People speak a devilish vulgar tongue…( adding to
Leipzig as an image of Sin city )
16.7 Al’s first afternoon in Leipzig
He easily finds new lodgings ( Landlady is fat and has a
devilish tongue )
His guide is the “verry porter who fetched my valise from
the station…”
The porter “looked right like Schleppfuss”, a churl a rope
around his gut ( ? ) with red cap and brass badge, in a rain mantle speaking
the same devilish tongue … small beard
16.8 Meeting of kretzschmar again
16.9 AL prefers counterpoint to Harmony
16.10 Auerbach’s inn
= Auerbach’s keller
Famous for the visit by Goethe who advertized the place in
his Faust.
Auerbachs Keller is the best known and second oldest
restaurant in Leipzig, dating to at least the first half of the fifteenth
century. It was already one of the city’s most important wine bars by the 16th
century and is described in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust I as the
first place Mephistopheles takes Faust on their travels.
Goethe often visited Auerbach’s Cellar while studying in
Leipzig 1765-1768 and called it his favorite wine bar. He saw there two
paintings on wood dating from 1625, one depicting the magician and astrologer
Faust drinking with students and the other showing him riding out the door
astride a wine barrel. Goethe was already familiar with the Faust legend from
his youth, since a puppet show Dr. Faust, was frequently performed at local
street fairs. The scene Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig in his drama Faust I is
his literary memorial to his student tavern and to the city, albeit an ironic
one. According to legend, the alchemist Dr. Johann Georg Faust once rode a wine
barrel from the cellar to the street at Auerbach's Cellar, something he could
have accomplished only with the help of the Devil. ( from Wikipedia )
16.11 Where Luther had his disputation with Eck
Dr. Johann Maier von Eck (13 November 1486 – 13 February
1543) was a German Scholastic theologian and defender ofCatholicism during the
Protestant Reformation.
Eck forced Luther to declare that Ecumenical Councils were
sometimes errant, as in the case when Constance (1414–1418) condemned Hus
(1415). Luther now effectively denied the authority of both pope and council.
Eck was greeted as victor by the theologians of the University of Leipzig, who
overwhelmed him with honors and sent him away with gifts
16.12 I bid my guide…that he show me to an inn for a good
meal…
Al is tricked by his guide to enter a bordello, a bawdyhouse
. ( the entrance displays the same coulours as his outfit Red and brass ).
Recovering from his initial surprise, Al steps right to a
piano ( which he sees as a friend ) – see note previous chapter and starts
playing…
He plays modulation B major to C major…as in the hermits
prayer in the finale of Freischutz
Der Freischütz, Op. 77, J. 277, (usually translated as The
Freeshooter is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria
von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at
the Schauspielhaus Berlin. It is considered the first important German Romantic
opera, especially in its national identity and stark emotionality. The plot is
based on the German folk legend of the Freischütz and many of its tunes were
inspired by German folk music. Its unearthly portrayal of the supernatural in
the famous Wolf's Glen scene has been described as "the most expressive
rendering of the gruesome that is to be found in a musical score".
A Freischütz ("freeshooter"), in German folklore,
is a marksman who, by a contract with the devil, has obtained a certain number
of bullets destined to hit without fail whatever object he wishes. As the
legend is usually told, six of the magic bullets (German: Freikugeln, literally
"free bullets"), are thus subservient to the marksman's will, but the
seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself.
16.13 The unreliable guide, the bordello, and the playing of
the piano to recover his wits comes straight out of the biography of Frederic
Nietzsche. It is an anecdote of capital importance for Nietzsche will indeed
have sex with one of the prostitutes and contract siphilis. Acording to legend
it is this siphilitic infection that will make Nietzsche a genius and in the
end a Madman.
16.14 AL does not have sex with a prostitute at this moment,
he flees the place
16.15 One of the girls
- a nut –brown lass, in Spanish jacket, with large mouth, stubbed nose ,
and almond eyes ( color not mentioned ), strokes his cheek with her arm.
She does not give her name … but he calls her Esmeralda… -
see chapter 3 when his father shows him the butterflies : ” One such butterfly,
whose transparent nakedness makes it a lover of dusky, leafy shade, is called
Hetaera Esmeralda…. “
16.16 Musings on Music ( to develop )
16.17 Handel vs Gluck
16.17 Ecce epsitola : here is the letter
16.18 The letter is
uncharacteristically signed with a capital L … L for Lucifer ?
16.19 The girl waiting in the salon are described as
butterflies and moths ( night butterflies )
… silken couches, upon which there sit waiting for you the
nymphs and daughters of the wilderness, six or seven ( 7 ) – how shall I put it
– morphos, clearwings, esmeraldas, scantly clad, transparently clad, in tulle,
gossamer, and glister…
See parallel chapter 3
p. 143 has incorrect reference to Chopin Nocturne.
Mann’s source on Nietzsche : Erinnerungen an Friedrich
Nietzsche (1901) by Paul Deussen
