Twenty-three [1] years ago R. was first seen! … A cheerful breakfast hour. Visit from General Herz in full American uniform, adorned also with American orders! R. reads the book of Schuré; he laughs over the “small eyes,” and remarks that among the people such a thing always signifies something unpleasant. To-day R. takes his walk alone; I remain at home with the children.
In the evening our musicians; once more we take up a quartet of Beethoven (Op. 2). At the first movement R. says: “That is the gracefulness of the deepest spirit, rejoicing in the form.” He falls upon a comparison between the Huntsmen’s Chorus in “Freischütz” and that in “Euryanthe”: “In the first,” he says, “Weber was still wholly the popular lyricist, writing a chorus as it is sung; in the Euryanthe he is far more the dramatist, writing the chorus as it is heard, drawn forth from nature.” “Even the march in the Euryanthe, fleeting and sketch-like though it seems, is dramatically conceived and thus takes effect.” – Of his family R. says jestingly: “I have as much connection with them as with the corn upon my left toe.” He recounts the 10th of October 1853, [1] and celebrates it with champagne!
[1] RW dined with Liszt and his children in Paris, where he saw Cosima, not quite sixteen years old, for the first time.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.