Saturday, January 1:
R. did not have a good night; he feels that the tea he drank yesterday, against his usual rule, did not agree with him. But he forces himself to stay quietly in his bed, out of fear of meeting his double; I myself was frightened last night by a noise, probably a mouse.
But in the morning he is cheerful, and he continues our discussion about the introduction to the A Major Symphony, which, he maintains, musicians do not know what to do with, and which he would like to reorchestrate. “Everything is either a march or a dance, there is hardly any absolute music,” he says. “Beeth. did not have the idea I connect with this introduction, the procession I see so clearly and in such detail that I could stage it; but the thematic figures imposed themselves on him, and then he had to work them into a symphonic form.”
Added in margin: “F, C, D sharp in the 1st movement of the A Major, what a cry of sensual delight that is!” R. exclaims. “What sighing and squirming! What is a musician to do with it when it suddenly chimes in? And how one has to rehearse with orchestras in order to bring such things out!” I tell him that in Mannheim it had perhaps not been so much heard as felt. He laughs and says: “Yes, when they play with me, they do not know what is happening to them. ‘What was that?’ they ask themselves. Tausig once said to me about the Freischütz Overture, ‘I don’t know what you did to the ending, but it was incredible.’”
He feels vexed about the “stupidity” of most of the people he talks to, the way, for example, J. Rub. listened to him yesterday and then wanted to have a full mathematical exposition of his idea. And he observes that intelligence is everything, and in living together differences of character are far less an obstacle than differences of intellect.
We walk to the mayor’s house and bring New Year’s greetings to our excellent friends. At lunch our friend Feustel, a person R. always enjoys talking to. R. looks back on the past and says that in his letter he told the King of Dr. Schanzenbach’s remark about what a pleasure it was for those who had been there during the bad times to see us all again in the same Munich theater, and to see R. being given a cordial welcome by the public; bless our meal with an embrace, R. says, “Two stars encountered each other,” our eyes met and exchanged our spirits!
We go for a walk in the palace gardens and again there is some agitation because of Marke, but less severe. In the evening R. tells us feelingly about a blind starling, which a flock of starlings are looking after, feeding, taking with them on their migrations.
Rub. brings along Mozart’s concertos, we talk about this man of genius, and R. plays and sings the quartet from Don Giovanni, which he considers a consummate masterpiece. “One cannot see from his symphonies and piano works what an artist M. was; there are some splendid themes scattered among them, but the construction is loose. But here, what a host of things are gathered together in one single piece of music! A repulsive situation, if it were spoken, but turned by music into Elvira’s lament. Oh, music! In it all the world’s sufferings are transformed into a gentle lament, and all sin appears as suffering. How does one respond to this?” He plays the piece once again.
Then he reads an article to us, “Fashion and Industry,” written in connection with an incident in Vienna, the wedding of the Crown Prince and costumes ordered from Paris, demonstrations against this. R. is in agreement with the argument expressed in it, that fashion must of necessity be dominated by Paris, and says: “One might have expected something from the last war, but now we see that it was just a soldiers’ affair, nothing in it, and thus Paris must continue to dominate, and it is utterly ridiculous to talk of a German fashion. The best thing would be for women to wear military costumes.”
His final word in bed is an exclamation over the stupidity of Gladstone, who is practicing the policies of the former government, though he himself previously stood up for the Boers. “But for the boors one is doing things,” he adds. Before that he expressed a wish to see Carlyle.
Delight in each other, in our children. Once more harking back to Zurich. If only I had said to him then, “Come!” But Hans was there, Tristan! I: “We had to prove ourselves to each other.” He urges me to take my medicine and says that with every sip of my iron salts I should toast him.