Monday, January 27:
R. had a good night, and he works; as he tells me at lunch, he spent the whole time improving a passage.
He is delighted with Loldi, says she will grow up to be like me. After lunch we discuss his “Plan for a German National Theater,” which I am now reading, and R. says he “made the mistake of counting on finding efficient people.” I: “Like C. Frantz in relying on the princes to restore the German empire.” He says he will put down all his thoughts on this subject in his final articles for the Bayreuther Blätter.
When he returns from his walk, he is delighted to hear Fidi singing an English song, and says his voice echoed so prettily through the house. In the evening, when friend W. and R[ubinstein] have come, R. talks about the Memorabilia and reads to us the dialogue between Socrates and Theodota and the one with the young Pericles, also the report on the death of Socrates; and afterward R. goes through the first finale from Le nozze di Figaro with Herr R., from the scene between the Count and Countess in which he opens the door.
R. says, “This is Greek in spirit, with its wit and its grace.” He says it could not make an impact against the grotesqueries of Rossini, and people could not discern the melody in its light and delicate themes, so accustomed had they become to big arias.