Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of December 2, 1881

Overview

Another spasm after his bath did not stop Richard from returning to work, though he begged heaven for easy pages and complained of being done with ecstatic miracles, bass clarinets, and the old indulgence in sorrow. A walk through Palermo's narrow lanes, churches, and street life refreshed him, and he showed Cosima new corners of the city with real pleasure. By evening, with Richard III complete and Levi asking further questions about Parsifal, Richard sounded both artistically exacting and increasingly weary of having to explain everything himself.

Content

Friday, December 2:

R. had a good night, but after his bath he again suffered a spasm. However, he is recovered and cheerful by breakfast time, and he relates that in his bath he had been thinking of Buckingham’s account of the attitude of the people, and the superb humor contained in this account. This leads to much else about Shakespeare. One thing he finds particularly horrible, he says, is that Anne cannot sleep because of her terrible dreams about her husband.

Then he bids the heavens with folded hands to grant him easy pages! Things such as “durch sie ging all mein Glück verloren” in Die Zauberflöte. He has had enough of ecstatic miracles, he says. And he has also had enough of wallowing in sorrow with the bass clarinet. I sing the theme from the last movement of the F Major Symphony: “Yes, that - that brings delight.”

He then talks about the transition from “Hagen’s Watch” to Brünnhilde’s monologue. “Always Tristan,” he exclaims humorously, “they never talk of anything but Tristan; all the tender, overflowing love that lies in Brünnhilde’s reflections - nobody has noticed that.” He works, goes into the garden before lunch.

At lunch I tell him about my visit to the museum. It is raining gently, but it is still clear, and R. shows me how transfigured Monte Pellegrino looks. We go for a walk through narrow lanes; R. shows me a palace which he discovered on his solitary walk yesterday and which is quite magnificent. Everything entertains him, the life in the streets, various views such as the one above the splendid towers of the cathedral, unusual peacocks; we go into a church (San Oliva) and pay a short visit to friend Rub.

Fidi relates his drawing adventures, telling us that a man got rid of the crowd around him at San Francesco by throwing heads of lettuce. In the evening we finish Richard III; with him, R. feels, the interest ceases - now come the “flat” ones, as he himself calls Richmond. Buckingham’s death again seems like a transfiguration.

Over coffee a letter from Herr Levi raised some questions concerning Parsifal; R. says he no longer has the necessary keenness, somebody else should do it for him.