Carl Dahlhaus here treats Nietzsche's youthful analysis of the contradictions in Wagner's doctrine (and, more generally, in romantic musical aesthetics); the question of periodicization in romantic and neo-romantic music; the underlying kinship between Brahms' and Wagner's responses to the central musical problems of their time; and, the true significance of musical nationalism. Included in this volume is Walter Kauffman's translation of the previously unpublished fragment, "On Music and Words", by the young Nietzsche.