Sunday, April 24:
R. slept well, but in the morning he was immediately vexed by the presumptuous announcement of the performances in London. He gets me to write in his name to Herr Neumann and Herr Francke. In spite of all the annoyances, we have a cheerful lunch, during which R. laughs at the children for being so touchy, and a nice letter from the King produces a very good mood. R. observed yesterday that, if we had not had the King backing us, my father would have ignored us.
[This last sentence was obliterated in ink by an unknown hand.] We go for a short walk. Then he settles down to his score, but he is tired at supper and says he is in a bad mood. I ask Herr Rub. to play us some Bach, which he does, organ fugues, first the famous A minor and then the shorter one, No. 6, I think. At the start of the latter R. says he is pleased by its imaginative anarchy. He describes the theme as a human voice which turns into a bird’s voice; it is the bird species speaking. Bach was a true musician, he says; the others, Mozart and Beethoven, were closer to being poets. He advises Rub. to be careful with rubato and repeats that it is impossible to indicate where it should occur, and no tempo marking can show it. Bach leads us to hymns, which nourished him, and to the ceremony of Holy Communion; R. says that the fine thing about our form is that it leads one entirely away from life, whereas the roses and the gaudiness of Catholicism are repugnant to him. Then he reads to us his Introduction, which keeps us in the same mood. When I ask friend Wolz. about Dr. Schemann’s work, R. exclaims, “When a German is fiery, he is almost invariably lazy as well,” which amuses me very much.