In the footsteps of Lou Andreas-Salomé

Lou Andreas-Salomé turned bourgeois relationships of her time upside down. It is no surprise that the heroines of her novels also broke free from the restrictions imposed on them by social norms. The aristocratic army general’s daughter, who was born to a German-Russian family in St Petersburg, read Spinosa, Leibniz and Kant at an early age. In 1880, she moved to Zurich, to one of the few European universities which allowed women to study, to attend lectures in theology, philosophy and logic. Two years later, she was introduced to Friedrich Nietzsche by the philosopher Paul Rée during a trip to Italy: a momentous event from which a particular kind of “ménage à trois” developed: the three travelled together, and discussed and corrected each others texts – although the two men failed to muster much enthusiasm for this platonic arrangement.

After Nietzsche was met with a rebuff, he arranged a photo in which Lou Salomé can be seen kneeling with a whip in her hand on a carriage that both philosophers are pulling, like horses. According to the philosopher (who after their final quarrel wrote the first part of his Zarathustra in just ten days), this photograph perfectly illustrated the relationship of the three friends. Later, Lou Salomé married the Orientalist Friedrich Carl Andreas. The marriage, however, took place under dramatic circumstances. After his advances were also rejected, Andreas stabbed himself in the chest with a knife before the eyes of his beloved – and survived. Despite her married status, Lou Salomé also had a close friendship with René Maria Rilke, who changed his name to “Rainer” because of her.

In this Philharmonic Salon, Götz Teutsch explores the life of Lou Andreas-Salomé. Heikko Deutschmann reads texts by Paul Rée, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sigmund Freud, Irmgard Hülsemann and others. In addition to members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Cordelia Höfer (piano) and the Austrian soprano Anna Maria Pammer also provide the musical framework with works by Paul Hindemith, Max Reger, Piotr Illych Tchaikovsky, Alexander Glasunov and Alexander Borodin.