Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 12, 1872

Overview

The household stays busy with work, children, letters, and progress on the Rhinemaidens music, which the children sing in the garden. Wagner makes sharp remarks about audiences, German tastes, Bismarck, and the future of art, while also receiving supportive correspondence and patronage. The entry turns more reflective and bleak with fog, a silent walk, worries about the world, and an increasingly tired mood, though there is still some amusement over the children and the reading of Eliza Wille's novel.

Content

Monday, February 12:

Nice letter from Marie M. R. works, I with the children. R. has now done the “Song of the Rhinemaidens” in ink; the children sing it in the garden; and R. says, “If I had an audience of Italians and French people for that, all hell would be let loose in this first scene - it’s just as well that I can reckon on German stick-in-the-muds to preserve the unity of the impact.”

When I asked him whether he had read a scene from a Sardou play, which was quoted in Die Gegenwart, he said, “No, I thought it was something German, so I immediately looked in the other direction.”

Pleasure in Bismarck, who is starting his battle with the Catholic party: “He is doing enough already; he doesn’t need to think of the art of the future.” R. corrects proofs.

A letter arrives from Mrs. Lang in Massachusetts with a signed certificate of patronage. Eliza Wille’s novel Johannes Olaf also arrives, and I read parts of it to R. We like it.

Shrove Tuesday, February 13:

I have a very bad night and fall asleep only in the early hours; R. wakes me with the “Song of the Rhinemaidens.” Some days ago, R. told me that perhaps the finest thing in this act would be the orchestral Prelude following Siegfried’s death; when his theme had finally died away, Gutrune would come out, thinking she had heard his horn.

Yesterday, as we read about Iceland: “Ghastly, desolate places,” R. says. “I see them sometimes in dreams, a memory of my former voyage.”

The fog has returned, all is gloomy and gray outside: “That’s how the world looks to me,” says R. But he works all the same. We go for a walk as far as Seeburg, both silent - so much lies in front of us, so much behind.

Letter from Chicago: they want to “honor your German masters” and have performed the choruses from Die Meistersinger. Letter from Herr Heckel; in Berlin Herr Loser, that most useless and pathetic of Jews, wants to organize a lottery along the lines of the one for Cologne Cathedral; R. is protesting.

In the evening read more of Frau Wille’s novel; it is a bit slow. Punch and doughnuts for the children.