Wednesday, October 4:
R. has finished the book on Buddha, and he reads to me the passage in it about deeds, that these, too, are finite and that the Atman is superior to them. This reminds us of the doctrine of grace in Saint Paul and Luther. At breakfast we come back to our vision of future times, and I ask him whether the lower classes of people we see here around us would not be better suited to the peaceful future state he envisages than the very different, proud race which produced history and art. R. reflects on this, but feels that among the emigrants there would be knowledgeable people familiar with and able to interpret the great poets such as Shakespeare and Aeschylus.
With Herr Levi, who visits us, he discusses the pause, “Nicht doch,” and decides that it has to stay on account of the structure, the melody; but he wishes the pause to be treated as a fermata. At lunch he is again full of high spirits; when his beefsteak is put in front of him, he tells a story about a bottle of medicine which worked on a man the moment his wife shook it! He writes to Frl. Malten. A photograph of the lovely Russian lady Frau v. Uexkull produces from R. a sigh of aversion: “Oh, these creatures, so alien to me! You can keep all such beauty.” Then, turning to the children, he says, half in jest, half in earnest, “We have sympathetic faces.” Herr Neumann’s telegram gives him pleasure. Since the weather is very bad, he does not go out. The Calderon play I recommended to him, Amor, honor y poder, arouses his disgust; nothing but chess figures, repugnant trivialities, he attacks it vehemently over supper, and I defend my own view as best I can.
In the evening we have some music; Herr Rubinstein plays us Beethoven’s F major Sonata, Op. 78, R. gives him some tips and remarks what a very personal work this is: “If one were to suggest it in the Vienna Conservatoire as a model of sonata style, that would be the silliest thing imaginable!” He goes on to speak of the second part of the first movement of the E-flat Major Symphony and says: “I know of nothing so perfect with regard to structure, the architecture of music. The way the themes intermingle, they are like garlands linked to each other!” He remarks that this movement never arouses storms of applause. “I suppose it is too spiritual?” I ask. He: “Yes, too spiritual.” The conductor thinks the reason lies in the instrumentation, and R. remarks how regrettable it was that in Beethoven’s time the wind instruments were so restricted in scope; he was using the orchestra of Haydn and Mozart, with ideas transcending all other worlds! When I observe that he should make the various corrections he feels to be necessary (he was speaking of the Andante in the E-flat Major Symphony, among other things), R. replies that it would not be feasible, how to know where to leave off? Every conductor who feels something is lacking should find a way out without saying much about it. We go off to bed in very good spirits, though there was some vexation when he came to fetch me from among the children.