Sunday, January 22:
"We are living like gods, and there's nothing more to be said," R. exclaims to me in the morning, and then sings a melody from La Straniera, which reminds us once more of the effect of such things.
"Vivid portrayal with it, an interesting singer, and goodbye to all classicality. That is where the drama must come in. I am no poet, and I don't care at all if people reproach me for my choice of words; in my works the action is everything. To a certain extent it is a matter of indifference to me whether people understand my verses, since they will certainly understand my dramatic action."
"Poets are nonentities compared to musicians, painters, and sculptors; it is only dramatists who can compete with them. The French people's great advantage is that they are playwrights, they derive the theater from their lives; it is a theater which resembles life. But it remains to be seen whether the Germans are capable of creating a theater which reflects the wildness of their nature."
Regarding the outcry in the press, "I should like to forbid that abstract word and insist on people's saying 'journalists,'" against the bombardment of Paris, R. says: "Now at last I understand the Prussians and their stiff, buttoned-up character; it used to annoy me to see the King of Prussia in that uniform buttoned right up to the neck, even in his workroom. But now I can understand it; if it had been otherwise, we should be lost. Among the French there is too much slouching; our people are like inflexible machines."
Talking about musicians and indiscriminate composing, he said yesterday: "Everybody should improvise; every good musician can produce something interesting in his improvisation. But writing it down is quite a different process. Then it has to be turned into a sonata, a suite, and so on, and it takes a lot to revitalize a familiar, defined form."
"Beethoven was the first to write music which was listened to purely as music; all previous things were designed to enliven social gatherings or to accompany what was going on in the church or on the stage."
Family lunch and later on the musicians; E-flat major quartet under R.'s direction, true bliss. In these tones one hears the lament of innocence over sin; if only one could transform the feelings they arouse into action, if only one could live according to them!
The children happy, even the servants much moved; Hermine says she always finds herself looking at the portrait of Beethoven and wishing he could see how well Herr Wagner understands him. Only in intimate surroundings and through study are such things to be appreciated; symphonies, on the other hand, are written for the general public, and drama needs the people.