Saturday, January 6:
Yesterday we read Nietzsche's new book, with solemn feelings and ever-increasing pleasure. Two problems are still occupying us: the construction of the theater and what a theater should actually be like. Looking at Semper's drawing and not being satisfied with the solution of the exterior, R. says it was perhaps fortunate that it was never built. I ask R. why it should not be constructed with a dome like a church, so that the stage section would not stand out so much...
Then he tells me he still wants to fulfill my wish and perform Beethoven's great Mass, but he has his own ideas about it; he would like to place the orchestra in the middle of the hall, with the chorus surrounding it as in a circus. Everyone should join in the singing, the Latin text, however, scarcely audible, for this music is not just to be listened to; the true impression is gained only by those who are swept along inside it - he discovered that with the Ninth Symphony in Dresden. In fact, he says, all music is designed for its executants, a sonata for a solo player, a trio ditto; the princes kept musicians, but the musicians went one better and wrote for themselves.
Unfortunately R. had a very bad night and can do little work. Lulu is somewhat better; I am constantly with her, write letters to M. Meysenbug and to Marie Schl. Thaw and foehn. I finished Prof. Nietzsche's book in the evening. 'This is the book I have been longing for,' says R. He has received a fine poem anonymously from Heidelberg.