Sunday, October 2:
Letter from Herr L[enbach], the picture has now really been sent off, I conceal this from R., so as to give him a surprise. From France still nothing but lies, it disgusts one. R. drafts his Proclamation. As an exposition of the requirements of the Bayreuth performance it seems to be simple and persuasive, but he fears the obtuseness of the princes. Family lunch, then with the four children to the fair; Punch and Judy, waxworks, carrousels. In the evening R. reads the Faust puppet play. In the morning R. makes music with Richter (Beethoven quartets). In the evening the Euryanthe Overture, regarding which R. describes his youthful impressions; how the violin accompaniment on the G string sounded under Weber’s own direction, and the unholy fascination it exercised on him as a child. “Childish impressions like that are irreplaceable if one has never had them.” He also plays the Coriolan and Egmont Overtures, whose conciseness he finds particularly admirable, whereas in others—Schumann, for example—there is always a forte and then another forte, bits here and there which could have come from the great master, and yet the whole thing is smudged. R. also reads some passages from Weber’s essays (parody of the German, French, and Italian opera).