Annals for 1857:
Jan. and Feb. Siegfried Act I completed. (Full write-out of composition.) Cure: wet-packs once a week: exhausting. Wesendoncks back from Paris: acquire small property for me; building of Villa Wdk. Good Berlin royalties. Understanding with O. Wesendonck; ending of Sulzer administration. — Frau Dressler Pollert and daughters: sing Rhinegold and Valkyrie: Kirchner. A year since Semper called to Zürich. (Kern.) Pleasant contacts. Herwegh. — Getting better and better acquainted with Schopenhauer. Also Walter Scott. — Invitation to Rio de Janeiro. — Suffer from piano; also one flute. Heims. — No contact with K. Ritter. Furnish cottage: much trouble in process. — Letter to Marie Wittgst. on Liszt. — (only later) letter from Grand Duke only after Devrient’s visit. Grand Duchess of Baden: for her album (Wotan’s Farewell). Letter from Grand Duke Friedrich. — Vienna negotiating over Lohengrin. — 20 April: Move from Zeltweg: Hotel Baur. Ill. 28 April: Move into cottage: cold and damp; bad. Nice weather coming: kind letter from Frau J. Ritter. Good signs: Good Friday. Imagination at peak: conceive ‘Parzival’. — Furnish, with ardour: last Asyl. What to call it? — Good spirits: 9 May ‘Siegfried’ Act II begun. ‘Fafner’s Rest’. Birthday: ‘Rhinegold’. Three Pollerts. New negotiations with Härtels over Nibelungs: My hopes of Grand Duke of Weimar for it destroyed by Liszt’s letter. Concern for continuity of domestic peace. Out of sorts with execution of Nibelungs. Recovering from bad cold: Tristan afresh and decisively. Possibility of its first performance in Strassburg. About mid-June decide to break off ‘Siegfried’ for ‘Tristan’. — Parcel to Emperor of Brazil. (Italian — Brazilian Tristan!) — Beginning July: Eduard Devrient from Karlsruhe. Also reading Herwegh, Semper etc. — Composition Siegfr. Act II. — Beginning August: Prager from London: Rhine Falls. Wesendoncks move into villa. — Robert Franz. — Also F. Hiller. — Summer restlessness. Begin ‘Tristan’ poetry. (Calderon.) — Hans Bülow and Cosima married: Hotel Bellevue. Three weeks with me. Got through Nibelungen to end of Siegfried Act II: C. — Tristan poem completed. Read aloud 18 September. — 1 October begin composition. Negotiations with Hartels about publishing. — Anxious days. — Confusion. Read through my diary: when peace? — American money crisis: Calderon evenings. Autumn. Winter. December: Act I of Tristan ready; also Prelude orchestrated. Morning-music with Bär’s musicians. — 31 letter to Alwine Frommann. —