Sunday, May 12:
Deputations from the Academic Choral Society and the Conservatoire, with laurel wreaths and silver plate. Nice speeches and fine replies by R., who says he is relying on youth.
Drove to the concert at 12. I, in the director’s box, can follow every movement of R.’s face. Fine, packed hall, an indescribable reception, mounds of laurel leaves; at the conclusion, since the calls do not cease, R. speaks a few words.
During the “Magic Fire Music” a thunderstorm broke, which added a lot more still to the effect. R. said that the Greeks regarded this as a good sign and he would do the same, and he expressed his hope of receiving true sympathy and support in Vienna for his German venture.
With Gluck’s Overture dropped, the program is: Eroica, music from Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde Prelude, “Magic Fire Music.” R. says this is the last concert he will conduct; presenting fragments from his works is particularly repulsive to him. But he would always be glad to conduct a Beethoven symphony.
At lunch arrival of Richter, just as usual, splendid and excellent; he makes his singers pay fines when they alter something in the operas! In the evening to Countess Dönhoff’s; but R. is tired and we soon go home. Prints of the photographs not bad.