Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of April 8, 1881

Overview

Richard works in the morning and finalizes plans for the London concerts over lunch, but undoes his wellbeing by venturing out alone and returning with a chest spasm and sharp frustration at the climate. The evening partially restores him through a fine performance of Beethoven's E-flat Major Quartet, though wrong tempi in the Flying Dutchman music provoke irritation and Richard takes over to sing the Dutchman's monologue himself. Alone together afterward, Cosima confesses that only Richard's music can reach her through the fog of present worries, and he agrees that Beethoven's sublimity belongs to a more blissful future age.

Content

Friday, April 8:

R. slept well, and he works. At lunch we have Herr Francke, and the final details of the London enterprise are discussed. R. then goes out, unknown to me, and returns home with a chest spasm and great indignation over the climate here. By evening he has gradually recovered; the first two movements of Beethoven’s E-flat major quartet are very nicely played by Rub., to R.’s great delight, then we go on to The Flying Dutchman, and the tempi are wrong - R. sings the Dutchman’s first monologue movingly.

When we are alone again, chatting together, I confess to him that, in order to enjoy the quartet, I have to be free of all preoccupations, whereas his works affect me even in a whirlpool of worries. Now, for instance, with thoughts of Berlin and many other difficulties, I can only feel in a dreamlike way how beautiful this is. He agrees with me and repeats that sublime things such as these are for future times of bliss, should they ever come.