Nietzsche: a philologist and philosopher, a syphilitic madman, an immoralist. But a composer? Why, yes, as it turns out: in 1887, he wrote, “There has never been a philosopher who has been in his essence a musician to such an extent as I am.” We all know about his obsession with Wagner. Some of us know that he had a flair for musical improvisation even after his ability to speak and write collapsed. We may even have heard that he used musical forms as templates for his writing. But, as for me, it wasn’t until Julian Young’s forthcoming "Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography" fell into my hands that I realized I could actually listen to seventeen of Nietzsche’s musical compositions, all of which Cambridge Press has put on their Web site.

In his own time, the great philosopher’s musical flirtations weren’t always well received. Franz Liszt praised the aspiring composer, but Hans von Bülow judged one of his pieces “the most undelightful and the most antimusical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time.” Ouch. But all those squabbles aside, the pieces make for a fascinating foray into another side of Nietzsche’s creativity.