Wednesday, January 25:
We both had a bad night; mine was caused by the horrifying news which Jakob brought from town yesterday, that smallpox is reported to have broken out in Lucerne. May Heaven protect us!
R. was unwell and worked on poems extolling the German troops; when he confided this to me, I encouraged him, but he replied: "Yes, but how? If I send it to the N.A.Z. without my name, it will receive hardly any attention at all. So should I sign it? With a name which any Jewboy can mock at as that of an opera composer one can't put oneself forward as a patriot."
Next morning his ideas had vanished. General Moltke has granted Jules Favre his safe-conduct. The conductor Eckert sends a telegram from Berlin asking if he may send the "Ride of the Valkyries" to the Gewandhaus. R. replies: "Consider performance of 'Ride' an utter indiscretion, and use this opportunity finally to forbid any such thing."
When I go into his room in the morning, I notice that he is disconcerted, and turn to leave; he calls me back and tells me he has just hidden the paper on which he had after all written down his poem to the German people; he had been ashamed to let me see it! At noon he reads it to me; I feel that it ought to be more extensive, and he intends to add another verse.
Still snow and mist, no sun. We cannot go out. R. comes to the subject of the Queen of the Night's aria, and we laugh at the absurdity of regarding this as a jewel of characterization and classicality, when it is quite clearly a virtuoso aria for one particular singer.
Richter teaches the children the role of Kilian. In the evening R. sings several things from Die Entfuhrung. We remark what a pity it is that such charming words get utterly lost in the ordinary opera house, since the audience has grown accustomed to art of much less refinement. Such things belong inside our school and must be dealt with like our quartets, then performed in front of an invited audience which has studied them. Bayreuth!
To follow Mozart, Gibbon. Wrote to Bucher.