Thursday, July 21:
A toothache night robs me of the pleasure of having breakfast with R.; Lusch takes my place. At lunch all sorts of reminiscences of Schiller and, among other things, of Fiesco; when the ending is mentioned, Verrina plucking F. by the coat, R. says, “And sings, ‘You’re a full 30 years old.’ ”
Over coffee the Egmont and also the Leonore Overtures come into his mind, and he says: “It is true that a completely different spirit has come over music - certain bits of padding in the accompaniment are no longer possible - had already disappeared in Weber, and appeared in Beethoven only when he wrote for the theater. His symphonies are entirely thematic, and one could also study his quartets of the middle period in order to learn how to avoid them.” He works. The weather is raw; we do not go out.
In the evening we are visited by a singer, Frl. Wulfinghoff, which reduces R. to a veritable paroxysm of despair! He finds it horrible to have to concern himself with such beings. End of the seventeenth book of the Diaries. The eighteenth book starts: “Dedicated to my Siegfried / July 1881 / Our Father which art in Heaven!”