The Brown Book

Richard Wagner’s diary between 1865 and 1882

The Brown Book is the notebook, bound in brown leather, that Wagner began on the Hochkopf above the Walchensee in August 1865 and wrote in, on and off, until 1882. Its first pages are a diary addressed to Cosima, who was then still married to Hans von Bülow and travelling in Hungary with her father; Wagner wrote in it what he could not say in letters. Later the book became a store for whatever he wanted to keep: poems, sketches for dramas, the Annals of his life, forewords and stray thoughts.

The Hochkopf and Munich, 1865. From 9 to 21 August 1865 Wagner lived alone with his servant Franz and his dog Pohl in King Ludwig II’s hunting lodge, ill, longing for Cosima and still shaken by the death of Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, his first Tristan. The daily entries run on through the autumn in Munich. Among them, written at the King’s request between 27 and 30 August, is the first prose sketch of Parzival, in which the whole drama is already laid out. The diary breaks off with the days at Hohenschwangau in November and Wagner’s expulsion from Munich in December.

Exile and Tribschen, 1866–1868. A few entries follow from Lyons, Marseilles and Geneva, and after a long silence a handful from Tribschen in 1867, written while Cosima was away in Munich. In February 1868 Wagner copied into the book his Annals, a terse record of every year from 1846, made from the notes he used when dictating his autobiography to Cosima. Through 1868 come the forewords to German Art and German Politics and the second edition of Opera and Drama, the recollections of Schnorr, thoughts on Buddhism for The Victors, ideas for a drama about Luther, satirical sonnets, and the Annals for 1868, the year Cosima came to Tribschen for good.

The later entries, 1869–1882. Once Cosima was keeping her own diaries, the Brown Book was used less and less. The later pages hold dedicatory poems to King Ludwig, notes for the Beethoven essay, the sketch for the farce A Capitulation, poems on the Franco-Prussian War, an epitaph for Karl Tausig and verses to Georg Herwegh. The last entries, written in Naples, Bayreuth and Palermo between 1880 and 1882, are notes on war, property, religion and race, and the book ends with the fragment “On Male and Female in Culture and Art”.

After Wagner’s death the book passed to Cosima and then to their daughter Eva, who pasted over or cut out the pages she judged too private. Most of these were recovered when the book was published in full in 1975, edited by Joachim Bergfeld; the text here follows George Bird’s English translation of 1980. Where the book gives a German poem with a translation, only the translation is shown.

Showing all entries (148 total)

Entry	Word Count	Subject
Annals for 1868	1,680	The continuation of the annals records the Mastersingers premiere, Wagner's rejection of further Munich involvement, and the crises surrounding Cosima's separation from Bülow. Travel in Italy and a hazardous return through floods precede her permanent arrival at Tribschen and renewed domestic and artistic regularity.
December 31, 1868	57	Wagner enters a cradle song for New Year's Eve, with verses about a white sheep and a black sheep in the garden. The lullaby pairs a soothing opening with a teasing warning to a child who will not sleep.
August 22, 1869	400	A poem presenting Siegfried Act III to Ludwig celebrates Brünnhilde's awakening and the completion of work long left unfinished. Wagner attributes the renewal of his own creative strength to the King's youthful support.
September 25, 1869	137	Wagner addresses the producers of Rhinegold through the Ring's own imagery of theft, curse, and concealment. The verses mock a timid theatrical realization made of cardboard and glue.
March 6, 1870	101	A humorous dedication links Lohengrin's reception in Brunswick with the restorative virtues of sausage. Wagner pairs it with Luther's thirst and Einbeck beer to turn the occasion into a comic German maxim.
April 13, 1870	730	Wagner appeals to Ludwig to renew the trust and protection that first made his work possible. Recalling their original bond, he asks the King to restrain impatient impulses and join him when the artistic goal has been reached.
Sunday, July 3 – Tuesday, July 19, 1870	441	Notes for a Beethoven essay distinguish musical sublimity from conventional ideas of visual beauty and draw on Schopenhauer's account of consciousness. Wagner connects Beethoven with the German spirit and closes with a hostile comment on an unnamed critic's academic advancement.
August 25, 1870	295	A birthday poem praises Ludwig's decisive word as a source of German renewal and shared national hope. Wagner links public triumph with relief from his own grief through imagery drawn from the Ring.
September 21, 1870	97	Wagner argues that interpretative journalism has damaged the audience's ability to respond directly to art. He explains his own prose writing as an attempt to restore that capacity and briefly notes the relation between artistic means and performance space.
Mid-November 1870	1,571	The Capitulation sketches a grotesque comedy of besieged Paris, political posturing, theatrical display, and German submission to French entertainment. Victor Hugo, public officials, and Offenbach appear in a sequence of absurd entrances, negotiations, and reversals.
December 10, 1870	82	Wagner questions who may claim the credit for military victories and insists that it belongs to the soldiers who achieved them. He attacks journalists and literary figures who seek to appropriate that achievement.
Undated	15	Wagner contrasts the German aristocracy's performance in war with its conduct in the theatre. He praises its members as field officers while condemning them as theatrical administrators.
Undated	33	Wagner argues that Hector is recognizable through his individual qualities. His identity cannot be reduced to the fact that he is a Trojan prince.
January 1871	696	A poem to the German army contrasts the soldiers' sacrifices with the inadequacy of poets, politicians, and public rhetoric. It celebrates military victory and the new imperial crown as the outcome of courage, discipline, and fidelity.
March 16, 1871	157	The Imperial Song hails Wilhelm and the restored German Reich after victory over France. It invokes peace, protection for friends, and defiance toward enemies.
1871 (probable)	49	Notes associated with Carl Wittgenstein contrast what Wagner calls Romanic and Jesuit pessimism with Germanic and Protestant hopes for improvement. They also connect aristocratic decline with arrogance and perfidy.
1871 (probable)	53	Wagner contrasts political activity and state formation with poetic originality in a speculative claim about mixed and unmixed nations. He adds a note on the different character of English prose and poetry.
August 25, 1872	141	Verses accompanying Twilight of the Gods Act III announce the completion of a work long carried through anxious years. Wagner presents it as a proud royal edifice brought into daylight by love and renewed life.
September 7, 1872	83	Wagner's epitaph for Karl Tausig depicts readiness for death as a fruit usually slow to ripen. Tausig's early attainment of it becomes both his daring and the cause of mourning.
Undated	10	Wagner offers a mocking image of professors as apes in the tree of knowledge. The brief aphorism reduces academic learning to imitation and climbing.
February 24, 1873	73	Wagner answers Georg Herwegh in ironic verse about age, political identity, and artistic influence. He casts himself as a still-effective rat-catcher and Herwegh as an unchanged democratic ballad singer.
April 1873	58	Wagner defines German culture through the capacity to understand things in one's own language. He also identifies features of ancient Greek life that he considers fundamentally alien to modern understanding.
April 1873	122	Using the Pastoral Symphony, Wagner argues that musical creation proceeds from an inward perception deeper than a programmatic outline. He criticizes David Strauss for missing the emotional transformation produced by the storm and its aftermath.
August 25, 1873	388	Presenting the ninth volume of his collected writings to Ludwig, Wagner offers the record of his efforts rather than a new work. The analogy of the Sibyl's nine books becomes an appeal for the King's will to fulfil his artistic hopes.
December 28, 1873	120	Wagner reflects on how difficult it is to retain love for humanity while reading world history. He locates the sustaining bond in attachment to one's own people and rejects cosmopolitan detachment.
August 2, 1880	79	Wagner rejects war as an effective remedy for overpopulation. He argues that it removes the most vigorous people and thereby weakens humanity.
Undated	65	Wagner treats possession as largely accidental and questions inherited claims to property. The note includes an antisemitic allegation about Jewish influence over legislation.
Undated	45	Wagner doubts that broad intellectual equality can be achieved because genius will remain rare. He considers greater moral equality both more attainable and more important.
Undated	42	Wagner interprets the growth of instruments and specialized sciences as evidence of declining natural perception. He uses spectacles as an example of technology compensating for damaged faculties.
Undated	41	Wagner describes slave ownership as an extreme expression of the conqueror's brutality. He contrasts this acute violence with the slower deterioration of subordinated classes in older societies.
No entries found.

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