Wednesday, December 25:
Oh, that one has nothing but words, words! This threadbare language for such joys, such bliss! I feel reluctant to write about it; there is no one to whom I wish to tell what happened today. . . . The pen slipped from my fingers; I now take it up again (noted at foot of page: “Friday the 27th”) to preserve for my children what has perhaps not stamped itself sharply enough on their memories.
Early in the morning I hear some rustling and think to myself that preparations are being made for the evening, since R. has promised me a party this evening, and last night they had to clear the presents away. Then Siegfried comes skipping into the room and says softly, “Mama, Papa wants you to know that the Robber is playing something from Parsifal,” and then the Prelude begins, really begins, and is played to the end, while my heart reels in bliss!
And then R. comes to my bed, asks me not to weep or expire, jokes gaily, undresses and gets into bed, breakfasts again with me (he had already breakfasted with Lusch at 7 o’clock), and talks and talks. The orchestra from Meiningen is here, he says; there is to be a house concert this evening, the Zur Weihe des Hauses Overture, the F major Symphony; yesterday there were two rehearsals, morning and afternoon, and all those things - the dream about the Robber, Jager’s fall, the Serapion Pact - were fibs! But the rehearsals cured him; he greatly enjoyed them. He went to the first feeling languid after his bad night, but with the Overture it was all forgotten. He crept home very slowly (he did not want to order a carriage, lest he attract my attention with the sound of its wheels), and when Brange saw him wrapped up in furs, she almost tore him to bits, wanting to get the fur off him, as if she thought something must have happened to him.
What can I say to all this? I hold in my hands the baton with which he has just been conducting, and the fan which he gave me along with other lovely things, and do not know whether to utter cries of joy or to expire. Death alone could express my feelings; life can scarcely contain them, and so I remain silent, silent, hearing as if from the farthest reaches of Heaven things no mortal being - not even you, my Siegfried - can be allowed to hear from my lips. . . .
At eleven o’clock rehearsal in Wahnfried. Introduction to the Zur Weihe des Hauses Overture, which, so curiously unsuited to the Josefstadt Theater, R. explains to me by saying that Beethoven probably thought of it as a suburban people’s theater, and had imagined and described in the introduction Emperor Joseph, the people’s friend, who wanted to drive out the Jesuits, whereupon popular acclamation, delirium! . . . After the Overture, the Idyll and Egmont, and the Andante and Presto from the A major Symphony - this for the children, since Siegfried so loves the Andante.
After the rehearsal some construction work in Wahnfried, so that the musicians can have an entrance of their own (work was already started on this yesterday, but secretly, during the evening, and done as if by magic!). Incredible the effect R. has on this by no means very significant orchestra! He himself laughs when, after the rehearsal, he catches sight of a violin case belonging to one of the musicians: “That is Fr.’s magic violin - it plays wrong all by itself.” At lunch, when I express my emotion at his having orchestrated the Prelude, he says, “Yes, I was always thinking, ‘Surely she must some time notice that I am not progressing beyond those first few bars of Act III?’” Nothing but revelations at lunchtime! Also much about music, about Beethoven’s orchestration, but in him the ideas are so powerful that he triumphs over everything.
The evening begins at seven o’clock. Program: first part: Zur Weihe des Hauses Overture (Beethoven), F major Symphony. Intermission. Second part: Idyll, Andante and Presto from the A major Symphony, Egmont Overture. Long intermission, supper. Prelude to Parsifal! With each bar of each work I feel like exclaiming, “Oh, stay a while, you are so fair!” From no performance ever before have I received such an impression, never! The players, as if transformed by magic, scatter sparks of divinity all around them; it is as if all the themes are being turned to flesh and blood, they approach us like individual people, and even the auditorium looks transfigured.
At each intermission R. retires alone, but I am permitted to make sure that he is well; only after the Egmont Overture does he have a little headache, but a bit of nourishment restores him. To me it seems that these glorious works have been cleansed of all profanation, of the disparagement inflicted on them by poor, everyday performances; they appear to me like Kundry redeemed by Parsifal; and, as if the ideas themselves were conscious of this, each theme seems to greet the master by displaying all its radiance, gentle or powerful. He and Beethoven! . . . But the evening performance of the Prelude is not like the morning one, when I was all prayer and ecstasy; this time I hear the Redeemer’s call to salvation, addressed to an unheeding world, a call so sad, so sorrowful, so fervent, I see his countenance and the gaze which fell on Kundry - recognize the wilderness across which this call resounds, and the awful recognition fills me with bliss! There stands he who has called forth these wonders, and he loves me. He loves me!
Richard was by no means displeased when Councilor Kraussold, overwhelmed by his impression of Parsifal, spoke a few words and called for a cheer; in his speech he touched me with his reference to me: “she who has no desire to live for an instant without her Richard.” All took their leave silently, solemn in their exaltation. R. stays up with me and Seidl, and we talk - if talking is the right word for a series of exclamations followed by silence! But R. enlarges splendidly upon the Egmont Overture and its connection with the play: it is something quite different, he says, and yet all of it is inspired by the play; so beautiful, says R., the figure of the hero at the end, after all the preceding fears in his behalf. Otherwise it is all Klärchen!
We part when R. becomes really tired, only to find, upstairs, that we cannot part! He is pleased with the white dress he gave me, about which he was involved in a lengthy correspondence. . . .