Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of April 16, 1873

Overview

Practical matters and artistic frustrations dominate, including correspondence about a score, concert logistics, and the recurring problem of institutional resistance. There is also some satisfaction in domestic scholarship, as the household reads and laughs over the old Hamlet story in Saxo Grammaticus. The day balances annoyance, scholarly amusement, and the sense that creative work is slowed by outside pressures.

Content

Wednesday, April 16:

Schott inquires about the score of Götterdämmerung. R. replies, saying why he cannot send it. Discussions back and forth about a concert in Mainz!

In the afternoon drove to the Riedelsberg with the children. Before that, a statement from Berlin concerning royalties, from which we see that during the most profitable season, when he also had the singers for it, Herr v. Hülsen gave hardly any performances of R.'s works, in order to make us atone for the Lohengrin project!

Great tiredness in the evening. Our main joy at the moment is the library; today R. read the story of Hamlet in Saxo Grammaticus. We really had to laugh over the Latin rhetoric in which Hamlet indulges during his speeches. Some remarkable features, but still more remarkable what Shakespeare preserved and what he cast aside.