Category: Cosima Wagner Diaries

R. does not reach home until half past three; he did not find a Sieglinde and altogether had the feeling of having seen nothing but ghosts; he says, “One walks around one’s own country as if in a foreign land; the old people are all shriveled up, the young ones…

Went to bed with feelings of sadness and woke up with the same—Fidi my little night companion. Went to church— alas, if only the parson were an actor! . . . Count Arnim sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. —  Two telegrams from R.! — I had given his manservant my…

Went to bed with feelings of sadness and woke up with the same—Fidi my little night companion. Went to church— alas, if only the parson were an actor! . . . Count Arnim sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. — Two telegrams from R.! — I had given his manservant my…

I dreamed about mourning clothes, the consequence of yesterday’s painful experience. R. dreamed of royal personages whom he had to receive, among them a fair-haired woman who wept in vexation at being slighted. —  R. prepares for his journey and at one o’clock leaves for Leipzig, where tomorrow he will…

Christmas disturbances. Good news for the undertaking from the outside world; the people in Vienna send 900 thalers, Frau Schott 300, a concert to take place under Richter’s direction also promises well. Much money will be needed, too, if R. is to announce his rehearsals for next summer.  Various people…

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…