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 July 1876 (21 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
July 1, 1876	212	The whole of Götterdämmerung was worked through, with Unger recovered but fresh trouble from Hagen, Kogel’s collapse, and Scaria’s stubbornness. Money worries were severe, the expenses overwhelming, and a solution to the Paris capital problem could not be found until news of a payment and calmer politics arrived later. The day also brought Malwida Meysenbug, a powerful piece by Nietzsche, and the shock of a sudden orchestra death, alongside outrage over the cruelty caused by the dog tax and a plan to form a rescue society.	Saturday, July 1: I-II. The whole of Götterdämmerung. Unger well again; instead, trouble with Hagen. Herr Kogel, losing his nerve, departs; negotiations with Scaria, who remains true to his meanness. Great financial difficulties: every day costs 2,000 marks, little coming in, Herr Feustel reports that in three weeks we shall have nothing left. I try to get my capital sent from Paris, without success! At last, on the 10th, the news that 6,600 marks have been paid into the account, and the political situation calmer. Arrival of Malwida Meysenbug, and a splendid piece by Nietzsche, R. Wagner in Bayreuth. Götterdämmerung uniquely moving, inspiring. Shattering news of the sudden death of one of our orchestra players, a Herr Richter from Berlin! Wilhelmj is completely taken up with an instance of human callousness. The absurd law taxing dogs is giving rise to the most horrible scenes; his sympathy, which people have spotted, arouses their greed; the dogcatcher no longer kills the dogs, since he can use them to make deals, and he feeds them on the flesh of other dead dogs, which makes them go blind! Quite well-to-do people are getting rid of these faithful creatures, so as not to have to pay the tax; it is horrifying. We are forming a society to rescue the poor animals.
July 12, 1876	77	R. rehearsed with Frau Materna in the morning and then achieved an indescribable impression with the third act of Götterdämmerung in the afternoon. The evening turned sour when he erupted at the Bruckners in the restaurant after they clumsily explained why they could not neglect an old customer, and he was then ashamed of how strongly he reacted. He ended by deciding not to return there, deeply hurt by the episode.	Wednesday, July 12: R. holds a rehearsal in the morning with Frau Materna, in the afternoon third act of Götterdämmerung with orchestra, indescribable impression! In the evening, in the restaurant, R. gets very angry with the Bruckners, who express themselves very clumsily. They say they could not neglect their oldest customer. R. regrets this, however, and cordially begs pardon of the B.'s. But then he decides not to visit the restaurant any more, deeply grieved by his excessive reaction.
July 13, 1876	116	Without rehearsal, the pair still went to the theater so R. could discuss the last scene with Brandt and inspect the Doepler figurines. The diarist was distressed by their archaeological over-elaboration, finding them false to the tragic and mythical spirit and wishing for something simpler and more primitive. The evening included discussion of Glasenapp’s new biography of R., and the piano rehearsals concluded with the dismissal of Herr Rubinstein.	Thursday, July 13: No rehearsal; we drive up to the theater, however, since R. wants to discuss the last scene, the appearance of Wotan, with Brandt and to see the Doepler figurines. I am much grieved by them, revealing as they do an archaeologist’s fantasy, to the detriment of the tragic and mythical elements. I should like everything to be much simpler, more primitive. As it is, it is all mere pretence. Some friends in the evening. Discussion of the new biography of R. by Glasenapp, in which several things are inexact, but astonishing research. The piano rehearsals ended with the wholesale dismissal of Herr Rubinstein, who here once more displayed all the dismal characteristics of his race.
July 14, 1876	71	Various annoyances crowded the day, including rudeness from the ducal palace over lodging arrangements for Frau von Schl. In the afternoon they rehearsed Rheingold, with Herr Niemann present in a mock-gracious mood, and they later stayed in the restaurant because R. wanted to invent a solution with Brandt to protect the stage effects from the orchestra’s glare. The practical concerns of staging kept intruding on the artistic work.	Friday, July 14: Vexations of various sorts; the ducal palace takes advantage of the problem of finding accommodation for Frau von Schl. to show rudeness to us! In the afternoon, rehearsal of Rheingold. Herr Niemann, graciously present, as I say to him in fun. We remain in the restaurant after all, since R. wishes to invent something with Brandt so that the glare from the orchestra will not spoil the effects in Rheingold.
July 15, 1876	76	Herr Siehr pleased R. in rehearsal and was engaged for Hagen, giving one of the day’s few satisfactions. The final rehearsal of Das Rheingold, however, was full of vexation: the rainbow bridge was wrong, the steam machinery failed, and Brandt could not produce the right vapors because of economy warnings from management. The Bruckner brothers had also painted in such haste that the decorations were permanently flawed.	Saturday, July 15: Herr Siehr at rehearsal; R. satisfied with him, engages him for Hagen! In the evening, final rehearsal of Das Rheingold; many vexations for R. in the course of it. The rainbow bridge is wrong so far, the steam fails to work, because Herr Brandt, warned by the management committee about the need for economy, could not produce the proper vapors! The Bruckner brothers have painted in haste, so there are ineradicable mistakes in the decorations!
July 16, 1876	41	A letter from the King announced that he intended to come but wanted no ovation and no meeting with anyone, setting strict limits on the visit. Mimi’s arrival brought great joy, and the household spent the day together in happier spirits. There was still uncertainty about whether the German Emperor would appear.	Sunday, July 16: Letter from the King, signifying his intention to come, forbidding any sort of ovation, and wanting to see nobody. Mimi’s arrival, great joy over this; we spend the day together. It is doubtful whether the German Emperor will come.
July 17, 1876	32	The first act of “Walküre” went badly for Frl. Scheffsky, while Herr Niemann handled his part well. Mimi was settled in and the day was spent with her, though R. was exhausted and the houses were thin.	Monday, July 17: First act of Die Walküre; Frl. Scheffsky terrible! Herr Niemann does it well. Got Mimi installed, and also spent the day with her. R. very tired; little demand for seats.
July 18, 1876	44	The second act only deepened the disappointment with Frl. Scheffsky, whose performance was judged intolerable. A discussion followed about replacing her at any cost, tempered by the fear that a new singer might not have time to learn the role.	Tuesday, July 18: Second act of Die Walküre; Frl. Scheffsky even more horrible. An excess of imagination and gracelessness! Conference over whether to get rid of her at all costs. Fears that another singer would no longer have time to learn it. (Also Scaria-like troubles.)
July 19, 1876	32	Most of the day was devoted to Mimi, giving the entry a quieter family focus. In the evening, the third act of “Walküre” made a strong impression, especially Brandt’s “Magic Fire,” though Doepler’s Valkyries were disappointing.	Wednesday, July 19: Most of my time spent with Mimi. In the evening, third act of Die Walküre, splendid impression. Herr Brandt’s “Magic Fire” magnificent; Herr Doepler’s representations of the Valkyries not good.
July 20, 1876	41	The first act of “Siegfried” brought a solid showing from Herr Unger, despite weak support from the rest of the company. Herr Schlosser was a problem, having lost much of Mime after singing a variety of other roles in Munich.	Thursday, July 20: First act of Siegfried; Herr Unger quite good, in spite of the players’ not giving him enough support. Unfortunately Herr Schlosser has forgotten a lot of Mime, through having had to sing all sorts of different things in Munich.
July 21, 1876	99	Box office receipts were encouraging, and the final scene of “Götterdämmerung” was taking shape in a more human form. A gracious telegram from the King arrived, but R. remained worn down and could barely sleep past dawn.	Friday, July 21: A good day for the box office today: 5,200 marks came in, enough to keep us for 2 days. Trouble about the candelabra in the auditorium. The final scene of Götterdämmerung is given shape, with human forms, not transparencies. Nice telegram from the King, thanking us for the Nietzsche pamphlet. Second act of Siegfried, Herr Unger in very good voice! The previous evening Herr Niemann had declared that he (Unger) would not have a note left in his throat for the second act! ... R. very tired. He sleeps now only until 3 or 4 in the morning!
July 22, 1876	114	A rumor suggested Hans might come, adding a hopeful note to the day. The rehearsal of the third act of “Siegfried” went splendidly, and the evening ended with Lusch’s arrival, R.’s tender mood, and his reflections on death and gratitude.	Saturday, July 22: A vague rumor brings the news that Hans may possibly come here! Rehearsal of the third act of Siegfried to the jubilation of all. R. tired. At 11:20 in the evening I go to fetch Lusch. She has grown, and looks nice, strikingly like her father! R. wakes up as I come home, goes to the window, greets the constellation of the Great Bear, which is shining most beautifully. “Good star, protect my wife and my children, do with me what you will!” He tells me he has been thinking of his death. He embraces me tenderly, saying that nobody knows all the things he owes to me. He is pleased with Lusch.
July 23, 1876	46	Lusch’s growth and resemblance to her father delighted everyone, and the day was otherwise occupied with ordinary errands. That mood was interrupted by serious anger when the management committee advertised a public rehearsal without telling R.	Sunday, July 23: Pleasure in Lusch, who has become quite grown-up. Paid some calls with her. Several guests in the evening. In the meantime great vexation. Without telling R. anything about it, the management committee has advertised a public rehearsal with seats at 3 marks. R. beside himself.
July 24, 1876	64	The quick sale of seats pleased Feustel, and R. responded by gathering a lively lunch table with Feustel, Gross, Nietzsche, the Dannreuthers, and others. The first act of “Götterdämmerung” was heard with the children and Princess Barjatinsky, followed by supper with the children.	Monday, July 24: All seats are said to have been sold within half an hour, which delights friend Feustel! R. has the good idea of inviting Feustel, Gross, etc., to lunch. Prof. Nietzsche has also arrived, and the Dannreuthers and several others. First act of Götterdämmerung; Princess Barjatinsky, Mimi, and I in the princes’ gallery, the children with us. In the evening supper with the children.
July 25, 1876	84	The day mixed social warmth with theatrical strain, beginning with dinner among Princess B., Mimi, Count Wallis, and Wilhelmj. In the public second act, Siehr impressed as Hagen, but the evening ended in friction when Brandt took offense at being listed merely as a machinist.	Tuesday, July 25: Dinner with Princess B., Mimi, Count Wallis, who enthusiastically plays the organ in our house, and Wilhelmj. Afterward the second act in public; Herr Siehr very good as Hagen. After the audience has left, second rehearsal. Afterward Herr Brandt, offended, declares his intention of leaving because he is described in a program by Herr Giessel merely as a machinist! I try to calm him down and to prove to him that R. knew nothing about the whole thing. With difficulty I half succeed!
July 26, 1876	71	R. quarreled over the committee’s complaint that he had admitted the fire brigade to rehearsal for free, but the matter was defused through joking and Heckel’s mediation. By evening, after the third act and a long restaurant stay with Mimi and Princess B., the growing sense of the production’s shortcomings became hard to ignore.	Wednesday, July 26: R. opens a letter written yesterday by Herr mittee because R. had admitted the fire brigade to the rehearsal free of charge! R. writes back jokingly, and Heckel mediates! In the evening, third act. We remain in the restaurant with Mimi and Princess B. Increasing awareness of the imperfections in the representation! The performance will lag as far behind the work as the work is removed from our own times!
July 27, 1876	77	Word came that Herr von Baligand had quarrelled with the committee and walked out, leaving everyone to wonder who would now prepare the palace for the princely guests. The day felt clogged with absurdities, and the costume rehearsal only deepened the irritation with its conventional, overdone lack of beauty. Amid it all, R. was again admired for his patience and kindness, while trouble with the servants at home added one more burden.	Thursday, July 27: News today that Herr von Baligand has quarreled with the management committee and departed! Who will now prepare the palace for the princely guests? Absurdities like this are a daily occurrence now! At dinner: the Niemanns, Wilhelmj, the Richters. In the afternoon, costume rehearsal. Little pleasure in it: much conventionalism, lack of beauty, little inventiveness, and too much ornateness. R. again splendid in his patience and kindness! On top of all this, servant troubles at home!
July 28, 1876	124	R. had a poor night but stayed in a cheerful and friendly mood, and a pleasant lunch with the Wilhelmjes briefly lightened the day. At rehearsal, Professor Doepler reacted badly when asked for modest costume changes, revealing himself as a crude hack and exposing the costumes as provincially tasteless. The whole affair was especially vexing because Wotan’s hat remained an impossible embarrassment, more musketeer than god.	Friday, July 28: R. had a bad night, but he remains in a cheerful, friendly mood. Light lunch with the Wilhelmjes; the wife very pleasant. In the evening, costume rehearsal. On my request to Professor Doepler to make Siegfried’s clothes a little less close-fitting and to dress Gutrune’s ladies less brightly, the poor man becomes so angry and rude that I realize for the first time what a hack one is having to deal with! The costumes are throughout reminiscent of Red Indian chiefs and still bear, along with their ethnographic absurdity, all the marks of provincial tastelessness. I am much dismayed by them and also rather shocked by the professor’s manner. R. is having great trouble with Wotan’s hat; it is a veritable musketeer’s hat!
July 29, 1876	71	R. spent the day at the theater, where Doepler behaved like an overgrown schoolboy, and the evening brought the first costume performance of Rheingold. The singers were strong, especially Vogl as Loge, yet the mood afterward was bleak because Herr Brandt had made an error and R. took it deeply to heart. Even the King’s question about the scenery could not ease the worry hanging over the night.	Saturday, July 29: R. goes to the theater; rehearsal with Prof. Doepler, who behaves like a “schoolboy.” French dinner, Schures, Monod, etc. In the evening, first Rheingold rehearsal in costume. R. very sad afterward, because Herr Brandt himself is in error. The singers very good, particularly Herr Vogl as Loge. After the rehearsal R. and I at home by ourselves, R. deeply worried. The King inquires whether R. is satisfied with the scenery!
July 30, 1876	39	R. went straight to the theater in the morning while the writer made various calls, keeping the day in motion but not especially lively. Later there was a dinner with Herr and Frau v. Schl., followed by a garden party at the Feustels’ with Bayreuth people and the artists. It was a socially full day, more communal than reflective.	Sunday, July 30: In the morning R. goes straight to the theater; I go to pay all sorts of calls. Dinner with Herr and Frau v. Schl. Afterward, garden party at the Feustels’; some Bayreuth people and all our artists.
July 31, 1876	67	The morning was spent fetching Princess Barjatinsky and Niemann’s little daughter, which sharpened the writer’s sense of the ugly talk and opinions circulating everywhere. What disturbed her most was the falseness beneath all that chatter, leaving her wishing for night and an end to it all. In the evening she went to WalMre and a rehearsal of the entr’actes.	Monday, July 31: Fetched Princess Barjatinsky from the railroad station, then Niemann’s little daughter. I get a fleeting idea of what floods of ugly talk and opinion are always flowing about here. What most shocks me is the falseness and mendacity behind it, and I feel very much like wishing, with our good Falstaff, that it were bedtime and all past. In the evening, Walküre, rehearsal of the entr’actes.
No diary entries found.