R. finishes his letter to the King; he complains about the dullness of his fellow citizens, and he says he would still likely have to give concerts for the building of the inns as well! … Beautiful weather; I pack for the two oldest children. R. goes up to the theater and once again has a deeply painful impression; the orchestra pit has been made too small! …
R. sees me packing and is deeply moved. The rest is silence; the quotation brings him to Shakespeare, who, in complete irony, might have meant it as a reflection on the grand speech Hamlet delivers in Saxo Grammaticus.
In the evening, a singer performs the Agathe aria[1], with all the usual faults of singers and conductors. R. says that with this single aria, he would shame the entire current German music world; they sing the important parts with insignificance and the insignificant parts with excessive pathos! … I continue packing until late into the night.
[1] From “Der Freischütz” by Carl Maria von Weber.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.