Our conversation is as usual concerned with what we heard yesterday. I told R. that, listening to the B. sonata, I felt as if B. were making use of all possible forms—recitative, fugato, Italian canto, figuration—in order to express something inside him of which even the music itself was only an indirect image. In consequence, it seemed to me important that a composer have within himself this certain something which is in fact inexpressible, rather than that he should be able to find melodies or play around with forms. Thus it is even in philosophy; it can solve no riddles, but the important thing is that the philosopher feel the riddles inside himself: this is a quality Schopenhauer has. — Recently R. said so aptly, “Brahms composes as Bach might have composed.” —
He asked me yesterday whether I knew what he would call his new orchestral works—“hovering forms,” and he would attach to them as a motto the first verse of the Faust dedication. I told him that the continuation of this—“My tragic theme rings out, for strangers fated; their very plaudits give my heart a pang”—could even be applied to the Nibelungen, but he replied: “Oh no, my tragic theme is for you and for nobody else. I have never had anybody except you.” —
Rubinstein brings along his piano arrangement of the Rhinemaidens’ scene, with which R. is very satisfied. In the evening read Schopenhauer. When I remark to R. that the one great passage in Parerga about the Kantian teaching (Volume I, pages 96-98) seems to me a particularly good model of descriptive writing, which as such should be included in all textbooks and given to young people to analyze, he asks me to read it again. Everything’in it, right down to the punctuation, is wonderful. —
Schiller’s letter to Fichte as quoted by Frauenstädt moves us with the moral courage of its truthfulness — where can this be found nowadays? Who would have the strength and greatness to write such a letter? —
Richter writes a not exactly encouraging letter about Dr. Glatz, whose training he would like to see entrusted to his mother! —
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
Dedication
Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,
Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision.
Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?
Heart’s willing still to suffer that illusion?
You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure,
And rouse me, from your mist and cloud’s confusion:
My spirit feels so young again: it’s shaken
By magic breezes that your breathings waken.
You bring with you the sight of joyful days,
And many a loved shade rises to the eye:
And like some other half-forgotten phrase,
First Love returns, and Friendship too is nigh:
Pain is renewed, and sorrow: all the ways,
Life wanders in its labyrinthine flight,
Naming the good, those that Fate has robbed
Of lovely hours, those slipped from me and lost.
They can no longer hear this latest song,
Spirits, to whom I gave my early singing:
That kindly crowd itself is now long gone,
Alas, it dies away, that first loud ringing!
I bring my verses to the unknown throng,
My heart’s made anxious even by their clapping,
And those besides delighted by my verse,
If they still live, are scattered through the Earth.
I feel a long and unresolved desire
For that serene and solemn land of ghosts,
It quivers now, like an Aeolian lyre,
My stuttering verse, with its uncertain notes,
A shudder takes me: tear on tear, entire,
The firm heart feels weakened and remote:
What I possess seems far away from me,
And what is gone becomes reality.
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