Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 7, 1873

Overview

The night was miserable, with R. peevish, unable to work, lacking a pen, and burdened by neglected proofs of Die Walküre. The narrator went to Malwida’s to continue listening to Schure’s reading, and the atmosphere shifted from the previous day’s bustle to silence and melancholy. She recalls an earlier remark by R. about ancient German warriors and the mystery of how music could arise among them. The only other reading that day was Schure’s manuscript, for which R. had provided Holtzmann’s book on the Celts and Germans.

Content

Sunday, September 7:

Wretched night. R. peevish, cannot work, has no pen, with all the terribly neglected proofs of Die Walküre to be read.

I go to Malwida’s to listen to the continuation of the reading by Schuré. Silent lunch, how different all of a sudden from yesterday! Silence and melancholy.

Yesterday R. told me that, when he thought of the old, warlike Germans, always restless and always fighting, at home only in their cold Nordic forests, he wondered how music emerged among them; then he would suddenly see the moon rising over the forest, the silent night shadows forming, and a melody like that of the Andante in the Kreutzer Sonata would begin to sound in his ears.

We spend the day with no other reading than, for me, the manuscript of our friend Schuré, to whom R. has given Holtzmann’s book on the Celts and the Germans for information.