Annals for 1854:
16 January: Rhinegold ready sketched in pencil. — Symphony conducting. Overture to Iphigenia in Aulis. Rehearsals. Kirchner. Quartet studies. Family life. Insufficient income. Financial embarrassment. Much about me in German press: Robert Franz. Agitated, ill. — 28 May: orchestration (pencilled pages) of ‘Rhinegold’ completed. (In Klindworth’s possession.) — Money worries. Trouble with Meser. Assign publishing of my operas to my creditors in Dresden. Hiebendahl’s proceedings against me. Also Kriete. Dresden solicitor. Bad position. — Article on Gluck’s overture to Iphig. — Scene I of ‘Valkyrie’. End June: Minna (onset of heart trouble) to Seelisberg for milk cure. Beginning July to Sion (Valais) for Swiss Music Festival: at Karl Ritter’s (married) in Montreux; with him to Sion. En route Hornstein. Dreadful mood: bolt, leaving note for Music Director Methfessel from Bern: alone to Geneva in very ugly frame of mind: back to Montreux, where Karl and Hornstein also reappear. An odd marriage. ‘Alcibiades’ (with me as Socrates). To Seelisberg via Bern, Lucerne: end July back to Zürich with Minna. — August: Act I of ‘Valkyrie’ composed. Wessendoncks back from travels. — Beginning September: Minna on visit to Saxony and Weimar. (also Waldheim: Röckel.) First reading of Schopenhauer’s ‘The World as Will and Idea’. 26 September: complete fair copy of Rhinegold score. Excursion with Wesendoncks: Glarus, Stachelberg, Klöntal, Pragel, Schwyz, Brunnen; at Goldau separate: they to the Rigi, I to Zürich. — Very short of cash: — Sulzer empowered by Otto Wesendonck; arrangement; Sulzer administrator. Makeshift order. — Tristan conceived. — November: Minna back. Music Society once again requested by me to do something for the orchestra. Once again promise to conduct symphonies. Gloomy, difficult life: less to do with people. Composition sketches of ‘Valkyrie’ continued and finished 30 December. Quartet in C sharp minor rehearsed. —