Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of November 1, 1871

Overview

Wagner refuses the idea of personally soliciting Roggenbach for Bayreuth, insisting that friends must advance the cause now that he has publicly proclaimed it. He returns to work on the second act, and the recovered Tristan und Isolde score arrives to overwhelming joy. Evening music from Der Templer und die Judin prompts reflections on German clumsiness, sudden fire, and the soil from which Beethoven arose, while another strange Easter Flower message unsettles the margins of the day.

Content

Wednesday, November 1:

Today, when I tell R. that Marie Muchanoff asked me to advise him to write to Roggenbach about Bayreuth, R.'s pride rose in protest; he said, "That is a matter for my friends; after having proclaimed my cause throughout the world, I cannot approach everyone individually with bowed shoulders."

He applies himself again to his second act. After lunch I go for a drive with the children. Arrival of the score of Tristan und Isolde! Overwhelming joy!

In the evening R. plays extracts from Der Templer und die Judin with enjoyment, laughs over its clumsiness and insipidity, but takes great delight in the fine dramatic passages. "That is the Germans all over," he says, "clumsy and stupid, but capable amid all their idiocy of catching fire and producing ideas. It is the same soil from which Beethoven sprang; here the quantity of genius decides the quality of it, for in quality it is not basically very different."

In the margin: "Easter Flower has written again, sending a photograph! Modern, wild hairstyle! She tells R. to flee from Berlin." "Feelings of anguish, as always when music is played."