Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of May 3, 1872

Overview

Business correspondence and orchestral concerns fill the morning, and she and R. spend much of the day talking about the 9th Symphony’s difficulty and Beethoven’s technical genius. Their discussion expands into broader complaints about German professors and the moral decay of the nation’s culture. After lunch they take a lovely walk through the countryside, and the day closes calmly with the children in the park and a quiet evening on the balcony.

Content

Friday, May 3:

Business letters. R. still working on his orchestra; he needs second oboists.

I write letters. We talked a lot about the 9th Symphony, which is so awkward in many technical details, yet throughout so intoxicating in the power of its thought. "It is the true tragelaph," R. says, laughing. He feels it would be very much to the advantage of the work if much of it were to be reorchestrated. "In regard to form Mozart seems a true Alexandrian master compared with Beethoven."

Also talked a lot about Strassburg University. I tell him how disgracefully the German professors, who had screamed loudest about the Alsatian problem, had used their appointments there for purposes of blackmail. "The German spirit, where has it gone? We are a pitiful nation, our culture utterly undermined."

Walk after lunch, to Eckersdorf via the Salamander valley; very delightful scenery. Pleasant evening on the balcony; the children all day long in the park.