Friedrich Nietzsche

Writings and Philosophy

• Aus meinem Leben, 1858
• Über Musik, 1858
• Napoleon III als Praesident, 1862
• Fatum und Geschichte, 1862
• Willensfreiheit und Fatum, 1862
• Kann der Neidische je wahrhaft glücklich sein?, 1863
• Über Stimmungen, 1864
• Mein Leben, 1864
• Homer und die klassische Philologie, 1868
• Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten
• Fünf Vorreden zu fünf ungeschriebenen Büchern, 1872 comprised of:
  Über das Pathos der Wahrheit
  Gedanken über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten
  Der griechische Staat
  Das Verhältnis der Schopenhauerischen Philosophie zu einer deutschen Cultur
  Homer's Wettkampf
• Die Geburt der Tragödie, 1872 (The Birth of Tragedy)
• Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinn
• Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen
• Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, 1876 (The Untimely Ones) comprised of:
  David Strauss: der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller, 1873 (David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer)
  Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben, 1874 (On the Use and Abuse of History for Life)
  Schopenhauer als Erzieher, 1874 (Schopenhauer as Educator)
  Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, 1876
• Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, 1878 (Human, All-Too-Human) with the two sequels:
  Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche, 1879 (Mixed Opinions and Maxims)
  Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, 1879 (The Wanderer and His Shadow)
• Morgenröte, 1881 (The Dawn)
• Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882 (The Gay Science)
• Also sprach Zarathustra, 1885 (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
• Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1886 (Beyond Good and Evil)
• Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887 (On the Genealogy of Morals)
• Der Fall Wagner, 1888 (The Case of Wagner)
• Götzen-Dämmerung, 1888 (Twilight of the Idols)
• Der Antichrist, 1888 (The Antichrist)
• Ecce Homo, 1888 ("Behold the man", an attempt at autobiography; the title refers to Pontius Pilate's statement upon meeting Jesus Christ and possibly to Bonaparte's upon meeting Goethe: Voilà un homme!)
• Nietzsche contra Wagner, 1888
• Der Wille zur Macht, 1901 (The Will to Power, a highly selective collection of notes taken from various notebooks, and put into a outline for a book which Nietzsche made but never expanded; collected by his sister after his insanity and published after his death)

Philology

• De fontibus Laertii Diogenii
• Über die alten hexametrischen Nomen
• Über die Apophthegmata und ihre Sammler
• Über die literarhistorischen Quellen des Suidas
• Über die Quellen der Lexikographen

Poetry

• Idyllen aus Messina
• Dionysos-Dithyramben, written 1888, published 1892 (Dionysus-Dithyrambs)

Music

Note: This is not a complete list. A title not dated was composed during the same year as the title preceding it. Further information for many of the below listed works may be found at this site annotated within the time of their composition.

• Allegretto, for piano, before 1858
• Hoch tut euch auf, chorus, December 1858
• Einleitung (trans: Introduction), piano duet
• Phantasie, piano duet, December 1859
• Miserere, chorus for 5 voices, summer 1860
• Einleitung (or: Entwürfe zu einem Weihnachtsoratorium), oratorio on piano, December 1861
• Huter, ist die Nacht bald hin?, chorus (in fragments)
• Presto, piano duet
• Overture for Strings (?)
• Aus der Tiefe rufe ich (?)
• String Quartet Piece (?)
• Schmerz ist der Grundton der Natur (?)
• Einleitung, orchestral overture for piano
• Mein Platz vor der Tur, NWV 1, solo voice and piano, autumn 1861
• Heldenklage, piano, 1862
• Klavierstuck, piano
• Ungarischer Marsch, piano
• Zigeunertanz, piano
• Edes titok (or: Still und ergeben), piano
• Aus der Jugendzeit, NWV 8, solo voice and piano, summer 1862
• So lach doch mal, piano, August 1862
• Da geht ein Bach, NWV 10b
• Im Mondschein auf der Puszta, piano, September 1862
• Ermanarich, piano, September 1862
• Mazurka, piano, November 1862
• Aus der Czarda, piano, November 1862
• Das zerbrochene Ringlein, NWV 14, May 1863
• Albumblatt, piano, August 1863
• Wie sich Rebenranken schwingen, NWV 16, summer 1863, voice and piano
• Nachlang einer Sylvestenacht, duet for violin and piano, January 2 1864
• Beschwörung, NWV 20
• Nachspiel, NWV 21
• Ständchen, NWV 22
• Unendlich, NWV 23
• Verwelkt, NWV 24
• Ungewitter, NWV 25, 1864
• Gern und gerner, NWV 26
• Das Kind an die erloschene Kerze, NWV 27
• Es winkt und neigt sich, NWV 28
• Die junge Fischerin, NWV 29, voice and piano, June 1865
• O weint um sie, choir and piano, December 1865
• Herbstlich sonnige Tage, piano and 4 voices, April 1867
• Adel Ich muss nun gehen, 4 voices, August 1870
• Das "Fragment an sich", piano, October 1871
• Kirchengeschichtliches Responsorium, chorus and piano, November 1871
• Manfred-Meditation, 1872, final ver. 1877
• Monodie à deux (or: Lob der Barmherzigkeit), piano, February 1873
• Hymnus an die Freundschaft (trans: Hymn to Friendship; also: Festzug der Freunde zum Tempel der Freundschaft, trans: Festival of Friends at the Tempel of Friendship), piano, December 29, 1874
• Gebet an das Leben (trans: Prayer to Life), NWV 41, solo voice and piano, 1882, text by Lou Andreas-Salome
• Hymnus an das Leben (trans: Hymn to Life), chorus and orchestra, summer 1887

On Hymn to Life

Oft regarded to be idiosyncratic for a philosopher, Nietzsche accorded to his music that it played a role in the understanding of his philosophical thought. In particular, this was laden upon Hymn to Life and its circumstance is treated here in the following below. Parts of this song's melody were also used earlier in Hymn to Friendship. Friendship was conducted by Nietzsche at Bayreuth to the Wagners and, according to Cosima, had led to the first sign of a break with his friend Richard, in 1874.

Nietzsche states, after communicating the main idea of Thus Spoke Zarathustra along with an aspect of his "gaya scienza," in Ecce Homo: ...that Hymn to Life... - a scarcely trivial symptom of my condition during that year when the Yes-saying pathos par excellence, which I call the tragic pathos, was alive in me to the highest degree. The time will come when it will be sung in my memory (Walter Kaufmann). The composition Hymn to Life was partly done by Nietzsche in August/September 1882, supported by the second stanza of the poem Lebensgebet by Lou Andreas-Salome. During 1884, Nietzsche wrote to Gast: This time, 'music' will reach you. I want to have a song made that could also be performed in public in order to seduce people to my philosophy.

With this request the lied (song) underwent substantial revision by "maestro Pietro Gasti" (Ecce Homo) to such an extent that it may be considered his own but he modestly denied all ownership. Thereafter, it was published under Nietzsche's name by E. W. Fritzsch in Leipzig as a first edition amid the summer of 1887, disregarding Hymn to Friendship. In October, Nietzsche wrote a letter to the German conductor Felix Motti, to whom he expresses about his composition Hymn to Life that which pertains to its high aesthetical import for his philosophical oeuvre: I wish that this piece of music may stand as a complement to the word of the philosopher which, in the manner of words, must remain by necessity unclear. The affect of my philosophy finds its expression in this hymn.