Wednesday, October 29:
R.’s nights are somewhat better; he is working regularly. Today I had the task of driving with Herr Brockhaus to the theater. When R. heard the sounds of a cadenza in a Mozart sonata coming from the nursery, he said, “If I had never had the experience of Weber’s things, I believe I should never have become a musician.”
Today, as we thought amusedly of the Italian priest’s passa passa to Luther during the Mass, R. related how one day, as a boy in the Thomasschule, he wanted to play the organ, and the headmaster took him to accompany the hymn; but when, between the verses, he improvised in the way he believed it should be done, he became so immersed that the headmaster stopped him: “The congregation wants to go home.”
Did not read the Luther biography in the evening, but, after taking Heinrich Brockhaus to the theater, had supper with the poor man, during which R. was pleased with my gift for speaking to the deaf. Friend Feustel helped.