Cosima's Diaries

Recordings by Cosima Wagner between 1869 and 1883

Cosima Wagner’s diaries are one of the most extraordinary inner records of nineteenth-century artistic life: part household chronicle, part spiritual notebook, part Bayreuth archive, and part psychological portrait of Wagner’s final years. Across thousands of entries, we see the daily world behind the myth: children, servants, illness, money, visitors, letters, rehearsals, readings, quarrels, weather, politics, music, and moments of almost mystical illumination. The diaries follow Wagner from the intimate Tribschen years through the creation of Bayreuth, the triumph and crisis of the 1876 Ring Festival, the making of Parsifal, the rise and collapse of the Nietzsche relationship, and the darker ideological currents that increasingly gathered around Wahnfried, including Wagner and Cosima’s antisemitism. They are not a neutral record, nor always a comfortable one, but they are indispensable: a vast, intimate, often beautiful, often disturbing window into the household where Wagner’s final works, his self-mythology, and the Bayreuth idea took shape.

The diary entries gathered here cover the years from January 1869 to February 1883, carrying the reader from the last Tribschen years to Wagner’s final days in Venice. Their breadth is astonishing. They are at once a household record, an artistic logbook, a spiritual notebook, a political barometer, and the intimate chronicle of a private circle attempting to become a public institution. Cosima records children’s illnesses, lessons, servants, meals, letters, debts, travel, weather, music-making, rehearsals, guests, books, dreams, religious reflections, and Wagner’s daily moods. The sublime and the administrative are never far apart. A passage on Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, Calderón, Beethoven, or Christ may sit beside anxieties about singers, money, doctors, railway journeys, or household arrangements.

The early years, especially 1869 to 1871, still belong largely to the private world of Tribschen. They are filled with the pressures surrounding Cosima’s separation from Hans von Bülow, her union with Richard Wagner, the birth and childhood of Siegfried, and the intense domestic enclosure in which Wagner’s later work was nurtured. Yet the outside world continually enters: King Ludwig, Munich theatrical politics, the Franco-Prussian War, German nationalism, and the first sustained appearances of Friedrich Nietzsche. Wagner’s work on Siegfried and the wider Ring is recorded not as a distant masterpiece but as something happening in rooms, at the piano, amid children, letters, exhaustion, and sudden exaltation.

From 1871 onward, the diaries begin to turn toward Bayreuth. At first it appears as an idea, almost a visionary solution to the failures of ordinary theatres. Soon it becomes practical reality: sites, architects, patrons, Wagner societies, subscriptions, guarantees, construction, copyists, singers, scenery, and the immense labour of creating a theatre for one artistic purpose. The move to Bayreuth and the building of Wahnfried do not simplify life. They intensify it. The diaries show Bayreuth not merely as a shrine, but as a project beset by money, politics, vanity, devotion, incompetence, faith, and fatigue.

The approach to the 1876 Ring cycle dominates the middle years. The Festival is presented as the culmination of decades of artistic striving, but Cosima’s record makes clear how fragile the whole enterprise was. Every singer, rehearsal, costume, curtain, orchestral problem, and financial arrangement seems capable of threatening the ideal. After the Festival, the tone shifts sharply. The achievement has happened, but its aftermath is troubled by deficit, press hostility, uncertainty about future performances, the proposed Society of Patrons, the founding of the Bayreuther Blätter, and the London concerts undertaken to repair the damage. Bayreuth has succeeded as revelation, but it has also become a burden that must somehow survive in the world.

After 1876, Parsifal gradually becomes the spiritual centre of the diaries. The entries from 1877 to 1882 increasingly revolve around its poem, score, staging, rehearsals, religious atmosphere, and practical realization. The world of the Grail enters the daily life of Wahnfried: Gurnemanz, Kundry, Amfortas, Klingsor, the Flower Maidens, the Temple, the Communion imagery, the question of sacred drama, and the problem of presenting a work that seems to demand reverence from a public theatre. At the same time, Wagner’s health, his travels, his growing weariness, and the family’s movements through Italy and Venice give the later diaries a more autumnal character.

The diaries must also be read with full awareness of their antisemitism. This is not a marginal feature. In the early years, anti-Jewish remarks often cluster around the controversy of Wagner’s Judaism in Music, hostile critics, the press, Meyerbeer, musicians, theatre politics, and questions of assimilation. By the later 1870s and early 1880s, the tone changes. Antisemitism becomes more sweeping, more political, and more programmatic. The entries increasingly connect Jews with finance, journalism, liberalism, modernity, social decay, and Germany’s loss of spiritual identity. The diaries also record Wagner and Cosima reading or discussing figures such as Disraeli, Stoecker, Gobineau, and writings on the so-called Jewish question. By 1881, this hostility has hardened into open sympathy for anti-Jewish agitation and fantasies of expulsion, separation, or emigration. The development is ugly, historically important, and inseparable from the world these diaries disclose.

That ugliness is made more complex, not less, by the fact that Jewish individuals remain present in Wagner’s life and work: friends, patrons, musicians, correspondents, and, most famously in the late Bayreuth circle, Hermann Levi. The diaries therefore reveal not a simple contradiction but a deeper moral failure: Wagner and Cosima could depend on, admire, or work intimately with individual Jews while still interpreting Jewishness itself through hostile and dehumanizing abstractions. Any serious encounter with these diaries must resist both sanitizing this material and reducing the whole archive to it.

The Nietzsche story forms another major arc. In 1869, Nietzsche enters as a brilliant young philologist and soon becomes a cherished visitor, correspondent, and intellectual ally. The early diaries record excitement over his writings, especially the work that would become central to the Wagnerian cause, The Birth of Tragedy. During the Bayreuth years he appears as part of the wider hope for a new German culture, one that might unite art, philosophy, and spiritual renewal. Yet the relationship gradually frays. His ill health, his independence, the influence of Paul Rée, his rejection of Schopenhauer, and the publication of Human, All Too Human transform him in the Wagners’ eyes from disciple into apostate. By the later entries, Nietzsche is remembered with bitterness, as a figure of disappointment, ingratitude, and betrayal.

What makes these diaries invaluable is precisely their mixture of greatness and blindness. They reveal the daily climate in which Wagner’s late works were conceived, defended, mythologized, and institutionalized. They show Bayreuth being born out of metaphysical ambition and practical desperation. They show Parsifal emerging from religious longing, theatrical calculation, bodily decline, and cultural polemic. They show friendship turning into estrangement, devotion turning into dogma, and spiritual aspiration entangled with prejudice. To read Cosima’s diaries is to enter the workshop, chapel, battlefield, and household of Wagner’s final years.

Year

Month

1869• 1870• 1871• 1872• 1873• 1874• 1875• 1876• 1877• 1878• 1879• 1880• 1881• 1882• 1883

Jan• Feb• Mar• Apr• May• Jun• Jul• Aug• Sep• Oct• Nov• Dec

Showing entries for August 1876 (23 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
August 1, 1876	46	A stream of visitors came through, and she finally collected her father from the station, a welcome arrival that also visibly refreshed R. That evening the second restaurant opened, and R. made a speech thanking the artists. There was regret too, because so many important people were absent.	Tuesday, August 1: Visitors of all kinds, and finally fetched my father from the railroad station. He is very well, and R. is decidedly refreshed by his arrival. In the evening, opening of the second restaurant. R. makes a speech thanking his artists. Regret that many are missing.
August 2, 1876	54	The day was crowded with arrivals, including Olga Meyendorff, and there was a family lunch with her father. Lulu was judged very well mannered, but the evening performance of Siegfried brought mixed feelings: Unger was fairly good, Niemann was prejudiced against him, and much of the stage business still felt unsatisfactory. Even so, the work’s overwhelming power came through, despite costumes that bordered on ridiculous, especially Alberich’s coat and epaulettes.	Wednesday, August 2: Many arrivals, family lunch with my father; Olga Meyendorff also here. Lulu considered very well mannered. In the evening, Siegfried; Unger quite good. Herr Niemann is very prejudiced against him. Much that is unsatisfactory. The costumes, particularly Alberich’s, almost ludicrous - Alberich with coat and epaulettes; overwhelming impact of the work, transcending everything.
August 3, 1876	55	She fell into a deep despondency after hearing that Hans in Godesberg was gravely ill, and the news cast a shadow over everything. Joy seemed impossible; only patience and work remained. R. still carried on with a scenery rehearsal for Götterdämmerung and an evening reception after a small dinner with the Danckelmanns, Schleinitzes, and Frau v. Meyendorff.	Thursday, August 3: Deep inner despondency! Hans in Godesberg is said to be so very, very unwell. The tidings oppress my soul like an overwhelming shadow; joy is unthinkable, only patience and work! R. holds a scenery rehearsal of Götterdämmerung; reception in the evening, before that a small dinner party with the Danckelmanns, Schleinitzes, Frau v. Meyendorff.
August 4, 1876	32	Slept little and spent the day submerged in thought, sighs, and entreaties, as if old inexorable powers had returned. The entry reads like a mind under pressure, unable to settle. She also notes that she will take up writing again on September 8 and wonders whether her memory will serve her then.	Friday, August 4: Slept little, submerged in thought, thoughts, sighs, and entreaties; a return of the inexorable powers! I take up writing again on September 8 - will my memory serve me sufficiently?
August 5, 1876	39	At midnight R. went to meet the King, and she accompanied him as far as the station near the Eremitage before he drove off and returned late. His report afterward was one of delight, centered on the King’s extraordinary kindness. The whole episode ended the day on a note of gratitude and wonder.	Saturday, August 5: R. goes at midnight to fetch the King. I accompany him as far as the railroad station near the Eremitage; then R. drives away with the King and returns home late, but in raptures about his kindliness.
August 6, 1876	54	The day opened with a stream of arrivals, including Prince Liechtenstein, and a cheerful lunch set a favorable tone. In the evening the dress rehearsal was held without an audience, and the King reassured the speaker of his loyalty. The performance itself went smoothly and ended with bright illuminations and enthusiastic cheers for the King.	Sunday, August 6: Several arrivals, among others Prince Liechtenstein; cheerful lunch. In the evening, dress rehearsal without an audience. The King sends for me as well and tells me that I should never have doubted that he would remain loyal to us. The rehearsal goes very well. Great illuminations and cheers for the King.
August 7, 1876	109	A public rehearsal of Die Walkiire was given to improve the acoustics, though the ticket arrangements caused plenty of irritation. Wagner remained closely with the King through the rehearsals, while the King seemed puzzled at the absence of any ovation he had forbidden. The note closes with a sense of mounting occasion as emperors and grand dukes begin arriving for the festival.	Monday, August 7: Rehearsal of Die Walküre in front of an audience, since it improves the acoustics. Much abuse with the tickets. Public rehearsals also on the 8th and 9th. R. with the King throughout; R. professes to have detected a certain ill feeling as he takes his departure. The King has forbidden any sort of ovation, yet he seems astonished when none takes place. On the 12th, arrival of the Emperor, the Grand Duke of Schwerin with wife and daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden, Anhalt-Dessau, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, etc., etc.; R. goes to meet the Emperor, who, in very friendly mood, talks about a national festival. At last, on
August 13, 1876	85	The first performance of Rheingold began under a cloud of mishaps, from Betz misplacing the ring to stage errors that exposed the theater machinery at the worst possible moments. Despite the embarrassment and the chaotic opening, the mood recovered when the Emperor of Brazil paid an unexpected visit. By nightfall they were back in good spirits.	Sunday, August 13: First performance of Rheingold, under a completely unlucky star: Betz loses the ring, runs into the wings twice during the curse, a stagehand raises the backdrop too soon during the first scene change, and one sees people standing around in shirt sleeves and the back wall of the theater, all the singers embarrassed, etc., etc. R. finally regains his spirits, and the sudden visit of the Emperor of Brazil restores the mood of ebullience. We go to bed in very good spirits.
August 14, 1876	133	Walküre passed without real trouble, but a visit from the Emperor nearly turned into disaster when he stumbled backward on a doorstep after praising the production warmly. Wagner was alarmed enough to feel the accident might have killed him. The day therefore mixed triumph with a sharp moment of fear.	Monday, August 14: Walküre, this time without trouble, except for an incident which alarms R. greatly: he is summoned to the Emperor, who praises everything highly, says jokingly that, if he were an orchestral player, R. would never have got him down into the orchestra pit, and regrets not being able to remain for more than the two performances, whereupon R. replies, “Favor is not dependent on time and place.” The Grand Duchess, however, says she is staying on. R.: “Then you extend the favor.” The Emperor, jokingly: “That was a dig.” He says goodbye, takes a step backward, does not notice the doorstep, stumbles so awkwardly that it takes all of R.’s strength to hold him; he is convinced that this backward fall would have meant the death of the Emperor! ...
August 15, 1876	44	Herr Betz delayed Siegfried by claiming hoarseness, stirring irritation and giving the hostile newspapers fresh material. The house was crowded with important visitors of every rank, creating a tense and busy atmosphere. Wagner himself is noted as remaining remarkably composed through it all.	Tuesday, August 15: Herr Betz has Siegfried postponed! He says he is hoarse. Much ill feeling; the newspapers, already extremely malicious, will draw inferences from it. Andrassy, Radowitz, Keudell, all kinds of people great and small are here, everybody in fact! R. remarkably composed.
August 16, 1876	30	Siegfried finally went off successfully, and the talk afterward was that Betz had never been hoarse at all. The remark carries a dry skepticism about people whose behavior seems impossible to explain. The day reads as a quiet victory after the previous frustration.	Wednesday, August 16: Siegfried goes off well; people are saying that Herr Betz was never hoarse at all! Let others attempt to explain such characters; we do not understand them.
August 17, 1876	52	Gotterddmmerung was received well, while the household also hosted a procession of distinguished visitors, including the Grand Duke of Schwerin and the Grand Duke of Weimar. The latter even asked Helmholtz whether he was conducting there, adding a touch of wit to the formal calls. The entries suggest a day of public success and social honor.	Thursday, August 17: Götterdämmerung also goes well; in the morning the Grand Duke of Schwerin with wife and daughter (Princess Vladimir) visits us at home. The Grand Duke of Weimar also honors us with visits in the evening and morning. Among other things, he asks Prof. Helmholtz whether he is conducting here!
August 18, 1876	179	The day was filled with calls, dinners, and a banquet at which Wagner, without preparation, made a remarkable speech. The toasts were inspired and generous, especially his praise of the speaker's father, and Count Apponyi added a glowing comparison to Siegfried. Yet there was also resentment that most of the singers stayed away, apparently still upset about the lack of curtain calls.	Friday, August 18: Calls, dinners, a tremendous amount of coming and going; in the evening a banquet. R., quite without preparation, makes a wonderful speech, paraphrasing the final chorus from Faust — “All things transitory are sent but as symbols.” The idea: “The eternally feminine leads us on.” The Reichstag deputy chooses very unfortunate words: one could not know what posterity would think of it all, but the striving was worthy of recognition! Following that, Count Apponyi splendidly compares R. with Siegfried; he has brought tragedy back to life, because he never learned the meaning of fear. Quite splendid. Then R. proposes a wonderful toast to my father, without whom, he says, no one would have known anything about him, R. A very, very lovely evening! All the singers absent except for Hill, Frau Grün, Reichenberg, and Herr Siehr (outstanding as Hagen)! After working for three months with R., they do not consider it necessary on such an occasion to gather around him; they are said to be angry because we do not allow curtain calls in our theater.
August 19, 1876	60	This was a day of rest only in the sense that one group of guests was departing while another was arriving. More than 200 people gathered at the house in the evening, keeping the social pressure high. Meanwhile, it was rumored that the German newspapers were printing particularly contemptible reports.	Saturday, August 19: Day of rest, that is to say, day of farewells and welcomings; the audience for the first series is now leaving, that for the second is now arriving. In the evening more than 200 people at our house. It is being said that the newspapers, that is to say, the German ones, are publishing very contemptible reports.
August 20, 1876	49	The King wrote in wonderfully appreciative terms about the performances and announced that he would return for the third cycle. The Duke of Meiningen and his wife also visited, adding to the day’s prestige. In the evening Rheingold was again strong overall, though Betz remained unusually lifeless.	Sunday, August 20: The King writes quite wonderfully about the impression the performances made on him, and he announces his visit for the third cycle. Visit of the Duke of Meiningen and his wife. In the evening Rheingold, this time very good, except that Herr Betz is extraordinarily lifeless.
August 23, 1876	37	The performances of Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung continued without interruption, though I was too exhausted to catch the first act of Die Walküre. In the second act, R. came himself to fetch me, saying he could not bear my absence.	Wednesday, August 23: Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung proceed undisturbed. I miss the first act of Die Walküre, being over-tired; but for the second act R. comes himself to fetch me, saying he cannot bear my not being there.
August 24, 1876	38	The Duke of Meiningen dined with us and marked Frau Materna with a decoration, which lent the day a ceremonial air. A large reception followed in the evening, where Saint-Saens played the piano and Marie Donhoff with her mother, Mme Minghetti, especially impressed me.	Thursday, August 24: The Duke of Meiningen dines with us; he has given Frau Materna a decoration. In the evening a large reception here. Saint-Saëns plays the piano. Marie Donhoff and her mother, Mme Minghetti, the latter very gifted.
August 25, 1876	51	The King’s birthday brought a formal dinner with the district president, but the evening was weighed down by Lusch’s departure back to boarding school. Her leaving felt painful on several levels, and I remained troubled by the girl’s character; I also stayed away from Mimi, who seemed oddly out of place here.	Friday, August 25: The King’s birthday; dinner with the district president. In the evening departure of Lusch, who is returning to the boarding school, very painful in many ways; the girl’s character worries me. In the evening I do not go to Mimi, who in this place seems very strange to me.
August 26, 1876	44	After Frau Eckert’s morning reception, the Frenchmen Laurent and Bovet gave us lunch, keeping the day socially full. Later our own house held an artists’ reception, while Prince R. Liechtenstein again missed the third cycle because his illness returned.	Saturday, August 26: The Frenchmen (M. Laurent from the orchestra, and Bovet) give us a lunch after Frau Eckert’s morning reception. In the evening an artists’ reception in our house. Prince R. Liechtenstein will not hear the third cycle either, since he is ill again.
August 27, 1876	46	R. went to fetch the King in the night once more, and Prince Georg visited in the morning. By evening we heard Rheingold, then spent time with Marie Donhoff, as demand for the third cycle stayed high and the earlier rumors were proved false; Herr Betz, however, seemed more and more careless.	Sunday, August 27: R. again went to fetch the King during the night. Visit from Prince Georg in the morning. In the evening Rheingold. Afterward with Marie Donhoff. Demand for the third cycle great; the bad rumors have had time to prove false. Herr Betz increasingly negligent.
August 28, 1876	58	Walküre was going well overall, but Herr Betz openly resisted his role and even laughed during applause, disrupting the performance so badly that the audience could scarcely listen. R. then asked the King to award the Order of Saint Michael to him and Herr Niemann, and the request was granted.	Monday, August 28: Die Walküre goes very well, except that Herr Betz is quite openly rebelling against his role; he laughs out loud when there is applause and the majority of the audience calls for quiet, so that one cannot listen. R. requests from the King the Order of Saint Michael for him and Herr Niemann, which is granted.
August 30, 1876	57	Siegfried and Götterdämmerung brought the cycle to its conclusion, astonishingly exactly as planned, something no one had believed possible. At the end, R. spoke beautifully to the audience, introduced his artists, and said their faith in him had given him courage before he took leave of the King.	Wednesday, August 30: Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, and thus, most astonishingly, the program which nobody thought possible has been adhered to. At the end of it R. addresses some fine words to the audience and introduces his artists, saying that it was they who had given him courage, by believing in him. R. takes his leave of the King.
August 31, 1876	28	People were departing, yet our evening reception was still crammed with guests, especially many English visitors. Among them was a reverend who struck me as thoroughly Jesuitical, though he claimed to be delighted.	Thursday, August 31: Departures; nevertheless our evening reception was very overcrowded, with many English people, among them a reverend who, though very Jesuitical, nevertheless declares himself to be enraptured.
No diary entries found.