Thursday, February 20:
“If from night’s cares you seek your ease, drink champagne and eat some cheese,” R. answers me when I ask him what sort of a night he had, the reason being that I have often asked him not to eat cheese in the evening.
He works and is satisfied with what he has done. In the afternoon he goes out for a while and then reads friend W.’s article on Siegfried, his object being to help him cultivate a simpler and more correct literary style.
In the evening three Bach preludes and fugues from the second book, very well played by Herr R. Of the first and most beautiful (in F-sharp minor, No. 14) R. says, “That is like Nature, incomprehending and incomprehensible, and it is also unending melody!” He then continues: “That was his language. In life he could expect nothing but trouble and vexation, and probably he never spoke a witty word, but in his music he let himself go.”
Talking about himself, he says he is still very pedantic and thinks hard before writing fifths, etc., but when he needs to, he throws the rule book out of the window; Bach did the same, and that is why R.’s teacher Weinlig never really liked him. (Very nice letter to R. from the King.)