Sunday, December 22:
R. slept tolerably well. He regrets that he will no longer hear the melancholy fiddling, for today is the final dancing lesson. That was yesterday; it was yesterday when the Robber and the Little Doll played their fiddles for the last time!
Arrival of friend Seidl (Herr Jager arrived yesterday). All the reports on Vienna are dismal, and I wish none of it reached R.'s ears. But Seidl pleases us with his simple and truthful nature and his correct judgment. Arrival of the pictures from Munich, memories; regarding the house on Briennerstrasse, R. says: “It looked for a while as if that would last, as if things would be all right - but no, it was horrible! The only places where life was peaceful and happy were Tribschen, the Dammallee, the Fantaisie, and here. I am glad that I have you so quietly all to myself.”
Bach in the evening. Of the Prelude in B major (No. 23), R. says, “This is full of hope, spring must be coming after all.” The 24th prelude he thinks should be taken “like a heartfelt lament”; he says he would like to hear it sung by someone like Catalani, with words - one would see what an impression that would make. He advises Rubinstein always to bring out the melodic line very clearly and says he feels almost like writing words for it himself. I observe that the text would have to be religious, a kind of offertory, and he agrees. He wants the ensuing fugue taken broadly, then gradually quickening. “These pieces are riddles,” he says, “one must look at them, follow the melody; he has really lavished melody on them.” After this Herr R. plays us one of his “Pictures,” and finally we hear Die Meistersinger, the concluding passages of the second and third acts. Divine impressions, Sachs radiating nobility, dispassionateness. I wish I could describe R.'s countenance when he is playing such things, his eyes opened wide, his gaze ranging ever farther, his brow illumined!