Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 18, 1873

Overview

They consider staging Lohengrin in Berlin outside the Court theater, and R. writes to Herr Coerper with that possibility in mind. At lunch he reflects at length on Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Coriolan, arguing for the inner logic and emotional development of the music. Yet the day is shadowed by serious frustrations over the house and Gedon, and by reports that people no longer wish to work. The evening gathering brings news of patronage certificates and Wesendonck’s visit, but also word that Bayreuth’s crisis is being welcomed in Hamburg, adding to R.’s discouragement.

Content

Thursday, September 18:

We are thinking about a performance of Lohengrin in Berlin (not in the Court Theater); R. writes replying to Herr Coerper with this in mind.

At lunch he talks about Beethoven’s 4th Symphony and says, “One could not understand the striking difference between it and the Eroica if one did not see that it contains the seeds of that unworried mood (containment of emotion) which first emerged in the Eroica and the quartets, and rose to a godlike humor, a runner-up to the 8th! Mendelssohn’s absurd explanation of B.’s alarm following the Eroica and a return, so to speak, to the norm. That’s the way scribblers think when, having done something that cost them a great effort, they write something easy again.”

Recently R. played the Coriolan Overture to me and Mathilde, a wonderful picture, the struggle within a soul, everything takes place within the hero’s breast, nothing external, not even the voice of his mother, which we hear only as an echo in the son’s heart.

Great vexations for R., as much with the house, on which the people say they no longer wish to work, as with Gedon. In the evening the Thursday gathering; Herr Kraussold relates Prince. Our excellent Heckel notifies us of 3 certificates of patronage. Herr Wesendonck announces his impending visit. In Hamburg the crisis in Bayreuth is greeted with pleasure! God knows! Yesterday R. gave me a great shock when he declared he felt no urge to work; all the many annoyances had utterly deprived him of it, he said.