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Conversation about music.  A: What have you to say about this music?  B: It has overcome me, I have nothing at all to say about it. Listen! They are playing it again!  A: So much the better! Let us see to it that this time we overcome it. May I say a few words about this music? And may I also show you a drama which you may not have noticed at first hearing?  B: Very well! I have two ears, and more if need be. Come up close to me!  A: What we hear now is not yet what he wants to say to us: up to now he has only been promising that he will say something and, as by these gestures he intends to indicate, something unheard-of. For they are gestures. How he beckons! draws himself up! throws out his arms! And now he seems to have reached the supreme moment of tension: two more fanfares and he introduces his theme, splendid and adorned, as though jingling with precious stones. Is it a beautiful woman? or a beautiful horse? Enough: he looks around him in delight, for his task is to assemble delighted looks  only now is he wholly satisfied with his theme, only now does he become inventive, venture on bold and novel strokes. How he expands his theme! Ah! Pay attention  he knows not only how to decorate it but also how to colour it! Yes, he knows what colour health is, he understands how to make it appear  he is more subtle in his self-knowledge than I thought. And now he is convinced that he has convinced his hearers, he presents his ideas as though they were the most important things under the sun, he points shamelessly at his theme as though it were too good for this world.  Ha, how mistrustful he is! He is afraid we might get tired! So now he showers his melodies with sugar  now he appeals even to our coarser senses so as to excite us and thus again get us into his power. Hear how he conjures up the elemental forces of stormy and thunderous rhythms! And now, when he has seen that these forces have seized hold of us, throttled and almost crushed us, he ventures to introduce his theme into this play of the elements and to convince us, half-stupefied and shattered as we are, that our stupefaction and convulsion are the effect of his miraculous theme. And thenceforth his hearers believe it is so: as soon as they hear the theme there arises within them a recollection of that shattering elemental effect  this recollection then benefits the theme, it has now become 'demonic'! How well he understands the soul! He rules over us with the arts of a demagogue!  But the music has stopped!  B: And just as well! For I can no longer endure to listen to you! I would ten times rather let myself be deceived than once know the truth after your fashion!  A: This is what I wanted to hear from you. As you are, so are even the best nowadays: you are content to let yourselves be deceived! You come with coarse and lustful ears, you no longer bring the conscience of the art of hearing with you, on the way here you have thrown away the finest part of your honesty! And by doing this you ruin art and artists! Whenever you cheer and clap you have the artists' conscience in your hands  and alas if they notice you are incapable of distinguishing between innocent music and guilty music! I do not mean between 'good' and 'bad' music  both species include both good and bad music, What I mean by innocent music is music which thinks wholly and solely of itself, believes in itself and has forgotten the world in contemplation of itself  the self-resounding of the profoundest Solitude, which speaks to itself of itself and no longer knows that outside there are hearers and listeners and effects and failures.  Finally: the music we have just heard is of this noble and rare species, and everything I said about it was lyingly invented  forgive me my wickedness, if you feel inclined to do so!  B: Oh, then you love this music too? Then many sins are forgiven you!