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

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Showing entries for December 1877 (31 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
December 1, 1877	223	Her health is poor, with her eyes growing weaker, while he feels well enough to work and enjoy a solitary walk. The evening is spent talking deeply about Shakespeare, and they end the day absorbed in his ability to reveal what ordinary speech cannot.	Saturday, December 1: Indisposed, my eyes increasingly weak; but R. had a good night and is able to work. Yesterday morning he sang me the theme from the finale of Beethoven's A Minor Quartet and said there is no longer anything in music as beautiful as the modulation and the conclusion of this theme. In the afternoon he goes for a walk alone, since I am unable to accompany him; he returns home and says that, as it did yesterday, the sky bore a faux air de soleil couchant [false air of a setting sun], as if it were saying, “I could, but I don't want to.” In the evening the third and fourth acts of Henry VI, Part III. R. finds Edward's wooing of Lady Grey a masterpiece of dramatic virtuosity, in spite of its naivete. We cannot stop talking all evening, indeed even when we are in bed, about the power of this poet: he can express what otherwise remains unsaid. R. says he himself has no bent for historical plays, but, if he had ever written his Barbarossa, he would have cast it in the light, rhyming verse of the literature of that time, in order to introduce a popular element into it. But we are now too remote from these subjects, he says; Shakespeare was still bound by tradition to his...
December 2, 1877	526	He describes a dream in which a performance collapses into anxiety and he yields the stage to Rubinstein, only to regret missing his chance. The rest of the day turns to Shakespeare again, where his reflections grow darker and more expansive, and the household feels briefly sealed off from the world in a private, grateful intensity.	Sunday, December 2: R. tells me he dreamed of having announced a concert in which he was to sing ballades by Loewe and play Beethoven's A-flat Major Sonata, but when the time came to begin, he felt uneasy and sent for Anton Rubinstein, who was among those present, and asked him to play in his place; he himself went to a restaurant to refresh himself, and there, in Zurich, Baumgartner told him of Rubinstein's tremendous success. R. then wanted to sing, but Baumgartner told him the people were already leaving, quite satisfied with the recital, though somewhat offended at R., who was annoyed about not having given his recital. R. works, and after lunch he says, “I am writing Parsifal only for my wife. If I had to depend on the German spirit, I should have nothing more to say.” After the fourth act of Henry VI, Part III he says to me, “I still intend to write my music of mourning for the fallen, but there won't be any apotheosis at the end, you can be sure of that.” When he returns from his walk today he says, “For the sake of the house I shall end my mourning music with the buzzings of A Midsummer Night's Dream - those are the chuckling Jews.” Worry about Fidi: we have tried to find boys for him to play with, but it has brought us nothing but coarseness, vulgarity, and mean idleness. Quite comedy, we conclude the tragedy, our admiration and emotion increasing all the time. Each newly introduced character is alive and completely individual; the conversation between Warwick and Gloster is incredible in its humor. Yesterday R. remarked particularly what a tragic effect is produced when the impostor's wife cries out in the first act of Henry VI, Part II, “We did it for pure need.” A horrifying excuse, which goes unheeded even by the noble Gloster; the people, rendered quite stupid by this contempt and unable in consequence to listen to the good and high-minded Henry, find their brutal expression in the figure of Jack Cade. The nobles show no trace of feeling, only a magnanimous interpretation of Fate in relation to themselves. We continue for a long time to talk about the poet, who sees, feels, and describes absolutely everything, without ever giving a sign of his own feelings. We think of friend Nietzsche, who rebelled against Shakespeare: “He always demands a certain kind of form,” says R., “and this is a malformation of sublimity and revelation.” And so we take leave of the work which has provided us with a complete picture of the dreadfulness of life. If only I could describe how fine, great, sublime in expression, sound, and gesture R. appeared as he was reading it! How much I enjoy the privilege of perceiving and watching him like this all by myself, yet I would still like to let the whole world share it! I now feel as if we were once more living our Tribschen life - once more we have turned our backs on everything, R. is working, the children flourishing, and I forget everything in contemplating his kindness and his love!
December 3, 1877	147	A bit of sunshine brightens the day, and they manage a quiet lunch together while she remains limited in movement. Later he handles financial matters about the Ring and worries over how to educate their son for a world he sees as increasingly corrupt.	Monday, December 3: At last some sunshine! R. slept well and works; we lunch alone together upstairs, since I am not able to move about much and he does not like eating without me. In the afternoon he goes with Fidi to see friend Feustel and discuss his general and personal deficit position; they agree to ask the King for 10% of the proceeds from the Ring to pay off the deficit. In the evening R. sends for Fidi's teacher in order to discuss with him the boy's education, but his horizon does not extend beyond the limits of the teachers' training college. Afterward, as we are discussing the boy's education between ourselves, R. says, “God, to send a boy out into such an evil world! And it is growing steadily worse; what should we bring him up to be? Maybe an African explorer!” At which we laugh heartily.
December 4, 1877	131	He works but is irritated by the difficulties of managing school and a periodical, both of which threaten to pull him into public obligations he dislikes. The couple laugh about the absurdity of the situation even as they worry about how to protect his creative concentration.	Tuesday, December 4: R. had a tolerable night and he works. But school and periodical (“Schule und Schournal,” as he jokingly alliterates it) are causing him difficulties; he would most prefer not to start anything new outside, and the enrollments are so few that it seems almost absurd not to turn down the half-dozen people concerned. However, the presence here of H. v. Wolzogen, who is otherwise of much value to us, obliges R. to find some activity for him. And so the periodical! The idea of addressing any more words to the public is distasteful to R., and my only desire is that he have tranquillity in order to create. A curious situation. In the evening R. and I laugh heartily about it, in spite of the worry it causes us.
December 5, 1877	147	After a visit from a friend, they decide to abandon the school and shift their efforts toward a patrons' society and its publication, with the long-term aim of supporting Parsifal. She handles the arrangements so he can remain free for work, and he responds with satisfaction and a playful sense of trust.	Wednesday, December 5: R. works. Visit from our friend Pohl, to whom we announce the abandonment of the school. The main activity of our friends is now to be the organization of the Patrons' Society and, through this and on behalf of this, the publication of the periodical; the ultimate aim of the Society, the performance of Parsifal. I settle all this with Herr v. W. and report on it to R., who is very satisfied and says he will give me a power of attorney, so I can do just as I wish! Merriment. So now, I hope, enough has been done to ensure that everything that might hinder him in his creative work has been removed from his path. R. tells me he has concocted a fine mélange for the esquires as they remove the dead swan: Amfortas's theme, Herzeleide's theme, and the swan motive from Lohengrin.
December 6, 1877	66	The day is mostly work, translation, and a tolerable night for both of them. Her difficult visit to Feustel leaves him upset and unwell, and the evening closes with a return to reading about the Arabs.	Thursday, December 6: Work. I am able to do some translation; R. had a tolerable night, too. In the afternoon I visit Herr Feustel, and then, unfortunately, have to inform R. that Herr Feustel is very surprised by the latest decisions. R. is very upset by this, and in consequence unwell! In the evening we take up Dozy's History of the Arabs, which R. wants to read again.
December 7, 1877	318	He has a terrible night, and she reflects painfully on how much she feels responsible for shielding him from anything upsetting. By evening, proof corrections and poor workmanship add to his annoyance, though the matter of the school is at least temporarily settled in his favor.	Friday, December 7: R. had a very wretched night, and I wonder to myself how I can keep things from him, so that he can live solely for what really matters to him. The mild, dull weather also does not agree with him. Yesterday I felt I had to tell him about my visit to Herr Feustel, but now I think I should have kept silent, let come what may, rather than torment him. But the few people who have enrolled must indeed be told not to come, and friend Feustel did not wish to do this without first consulting R. This pains me unutterably; the only point of my existence is to protect him, to shield and take care of him! He does manage to work a little in the morning. But in the evening the proofs of Parsifal cause him great annoyance; the print is too large and the appearance of the whole is not pleasing. On top of that, Herr Seidl made such a bad copy that R.'s work has been doubled. To Herr Feustel in the evening to meet the mayor. As we are driving there, R. recalls various times when he went out like this in the evenings, and he says, “There are no forms and faces hovering near me, nothing lives in my memory, I look back into the mists of the past; everything before our time together is dead inside me.” Herr Feustel and the mayor comply with R.'s wishes, though it is decided only that the school will not open for the time being. We return home in cheerful spirits, and R. thanks me! Oh, God! When he said to me today, “I am hard to put up with - one has to unload one's vexation and worry on the person one loves best,” I did not know what to say: the only thing I find hard is to see him suffering!
December 8, 1877	65	His sleep remains poor, but he avoids severe physical trouble and spends the morning revising Parsifal proofs. The day stays quiet apart from their continued reading, and he is amused enough to mock the style in which his own work has been announced.	Saturday, December 8: R. did not sleep much, but at least he had no attacks of cramps and did not get up. He spends the morning correcting the Parsifal proofs and will demand from Dr. Strecker a different typeface from the “elegant roman” in which, as we note with laughter, he has announced the poem. In the evening we continue with Dozy's History of the Arabs.
December 9, 1877	305	A restless night and Christmas errands frame a day in which he works and takes a short walk, but she is devastated to learn that the Idyll has already been performed elsewhere. The rest of the entry is a long inward lament about sacrifice, separation from the world, and the sorrow of having to surrender what she loves most.	Sunday, December 9: R. got up once during the night, but he says he did not sleep too badly; worry kept me awake. Christmas errands. R. works. In the afternoon a short walk. Grief on my return home - R. tells me that the Idyll has already been performed in Mainz, and he reads me the stupid words which accompanied the performance (that in it Fidi's joys are depicted!). I knew when I made the sacrifice just what a sacrifice it really was, yet curiously enough this review affects me as if I had never foreseen it! I could not be more estranged from the world than I am, never less involved in its joys, less sympathetic toward its doings, yet at this very time I am obliged to yield to it my most cherished possession! I have the feeling, since I was obliged to yield it up, that I have proved unworthy of it - and I hasten to my room, there to weep and lament and once again accept within myself that my hard lot is just, that what I cherish must be yielded up as too sublime for me. Why should I alone be made happy, I alone be blissful? ... I see all the tears I have shed, hear the sound of all my lamentations, and my complaining relapses into silence, my tears dry up. To you alone I confide them, my Fidi - when you read these lines after I am dead, hear these sobs after I have vanished from sight, think of your mother - how she loved you and sadly sent you outside into a world from which she was already severed in her lifetime! In the evening with the Wolzogens and the entire “flock” to see Die Teufelsmühle, an old memory of R.'s - but the performance worse than bad.
December 10, 1877	166	On the anniversary of Daniel's death, he reacts with anger toward those he believes bear responsibility and resists moving too quickly on a request about Walküre. The corrected Parsifal proofs please him more than expected, and the evening ends with a winter walk, dry humor about money, and renewed bitterness about the people linked to Daniel's death.	Monday, December 10: Anniversary of Daniel's death. Herr Eckert, the conductor, wrote yesterday to say that Herr v. Hülsen wants Die Walküre and would also like to make some cuts in the second act. R. decides not to hurry with his reply. The corrected proofs of Parsifal arrive, and the whole thing looks much better than it did, so that R. decides to put up after all with the “elegant” roman type. We continue with Dozy in the evening. Fine winter weather. R. walks around the house in the evening - “like Gloster,” he says - and returns saying that he has never composed an “opera” under such conditions. “This should bring us in a lot of money!” he adds with a laugh. The memory of Daniel's death arouses violent anger in him against the people whom he sees, not without justice, as having been responsible for his death; he deplores the fact that one still remains on good terms with these people; feelings are weak, he says.
December 11, 1877	116	The day passed with work quietly in the background, though the night before had ended in comic confusion when he wandered downstairs and fell asleep in the salon with a book beside him. Once the laughter over that episode faded, the household settled back into translation, reading, and a peaceful evening.	Tuesday, December 11: R. works; during the night we laughed heartily because yesterday, in his agitation, he went downstairs instead of going to bed. Becoming worried after a while, I left my bed and crept downstairs after him; he was sitting in the salon, asleep, the lamp alight, Schlegel’s Greeks and Romans at his side. Much relieved, I waited until he woke up, which soon happened, and the situation caused us much laughter. The distichs quoted in the book had sent him to sleep. The rest of the night passed peacefully. He does a little work. I start to translate the third act. In the evening the history of the Arabs and Hoffmann’s story about Daucus Carota.
December 12, 1877	157	The morning brought steadier health and a reflective conversation about recent events in Munich, which led to a warm exchange about faith in what is true and solid. A long, inventive walk through the palace gardens lifted the mood, though news of a deficit from a Frankfurt concert was dispiriting. The day ended more pleasantly with the close of Hoffmann's tale, which they found engaging.	Wednesday, December 12: R. works. He spent quite a tolerable night, though he had to get up once. A conversation about the events in Munich, his departure at the King’s request, causes him to remark, “It was better it should have happened like that.” I: “Yes, it left me with an unconquerable faith.” R.: “Faith in what is good and genuine; that stands firm, nothing can affect it, it is there, whatever else happens.” Walk with R. in the palace gardens, during which he guides me along the most wonderful paths, so that we walk for three-quarters of an hour in this small space without ever using the same path twice. A letter from Herr Eiser in the evening arouses unpleasant feelings: the concert in Frankfurt ended with a deficit of 3,000 marks; yet people will persist in dallying with these useless activities, which gives them a kind of importance. We finish Hoffmann’s tale, which we find very entertaining.
December 13, 1877	100	His dissatisfaction with the morning's work cast a shadow over the day, and even administrative news about local societies did little to improve it. In the evening, however, a strong essay on Kleist restored some intellectual excitement, and hearing passages from Die Meistersinger was a clear pleasure.	Thursday, December 13: R. is dissatisfied with his morning’s work and intends to discard it. Ill humor is the consequence. Dr. Riser’s reply to Herr von W.’s invitation to merge the local Societies into the general Patrons’ Society is also not calculated to raise our spirits. In the evening Herr v. W. reads us an excellent article he has written about Heinrich Kleist, in which he indicates quite outstandingly the peculiar nature of the poet’s genius and the special qualities of both Die Hermannsschlacht and Der Prinz von Homburg. After that R. plays us some passages from Die Meistersinger - splendid work!
December 14, 1877	273	He felt recovered from the previous day's misstep and reflected on how easily music could distract him from the right path. That evening he led a discussion about the contrast between ornate rhetoric and a more genuinely German style, extending the idea across art, music, and education. The day closed in intense gratitude, as the writer felt increasingly humbled and thankful for the life she was leading.	Friday, December 14: R. says he has now “put right” yesterday’s errors. One must be careful, he observes, not to let oneself be led astray by the melodies; that happened to him yesterday, and it had put him quite out of the mood. The weather is still dull; but here in our Parsifal’s replies to Gurnemanz! In the evening he gives Herr v. W. a theme to study and work out: “the contrast between rhetoric and German style.” He says it can be traced right through the development of the arts, particularly that of music, this rhetoric which is still a principal ingredient of French teaching and the educational methods of the Jesuits. The principle derived from a false understanding of the Greeks, and it dominates our whole culture, its antithesis being the German style. We talk a lot about this, finding many examples. Then R. plays passages from Die Meistersinger, to our great bliss. The Idyll is now being reeled off everywhere; to bear this trial cheerfully takes all my efforts! We are now beginning a new Tribschen life, and only R.’s indisposition can cloud it. All that seemed hard in my life has been transformed into blessings, and Fate has graciously guided me by force wherever I resisted; and so, unworthy in every way, thoroughly undeserving, here I stand, loved and protected by God, in grateful astonishment, full of an unshakeable faith, moved to the depths of my soul by this mission which has been vouchsafed me, the privilege of serving the highest - I, unworthy as I am! Thus I know only devotion and work and deep humility in my sacred happiness!
December 15, 1877	160	A damp day kept the walk brief, and the household centered on work and the children while he stayed occupied with his tasks. The evening brought a small dispute over how one of his pieces was advertised, but there was also renewed pleasure in reading about the Arabs and hearing selections from Die Meistersinger. The moonlit garden moment left her deeply comforted.	Saturday, December 15: R. had a good night, and he works; I am with the children. Short walk with R. in the palace gardens, since the damp air does not agree with him. I remain outside in the garden and, after a few turns in the gloom, am suddenly bathed in light: the moon is shining brightly down on me, and a star sends me a mild and friendly greeting. It is as if they have understood my thoughts and are blessing me, the one with courage, the other with comfort! With a full heart I go indoors, to find R. dissatisfied with an advertisement announcing “a sketch for a sonata.” He would like to see the work described as “a fantasy for an album,” thus explaining its “elegant triviality”; altogether he is displeased that it should have been published without his being sent a proof. In the evening the history of the Arabs again, and some passages from Die Meistersinger.
December 16, 1877	246	Snow and church framed a calm Sunday in which he continued working and finally progressed with Kundry. A quiet exchange in the evening revealed how deeply their companionship endured even when they were not physically side by side. Music, essays, and his work on Parsifal filled out a day that ended in admiration for his genius and gentleness.	Sunday, December 16: Church and snow! R. works; he has at last brought Kundry into the bushes, he tells me at lunch. In the evening we take delight in the house and the hall, lit from above; as we separate, he to his work and I to some reading with the children, I remark how hard it is to have to part. He replies: “But being together, though not side by side, is just as nice. When we are side by side, we also talk about other things, but when we are separated, we can be wholly together in spirit. While working, I would be unable to speak to you, and yet I am wholly with you.” Herr v. W. reads me his very fine essays on the Ring des Nibelungen and on Christianity. In the evening the history of the Arabs and some music from the Pastoral and Ninth Symphonies, which R. plays. Before supper he shows me what he has already worked on in ink, the shining men of Parsifal... At table his whole countenance radiates genius and goodness! He told me recently that his vehemence had been given him to compensate for his softness. He shrank away, to the point of cowardice, from saying harsh things to anybody. And it is true, people might consider him to be completely not genuine, for he does not like telling people what he thinks of them, and for that reason his only defense lies in seclusion. Beethoven’s birthday!
December 17, 1877	228	He was still not entirely well, but he kept working and even made arrangements for a Christmas suit for Fidi. Conversation over coffee turned toward philosophy and Goethe, with strong opinions about Schopenhauer and Faust. The evening's reading and Fidi's sleepy imitation of Turkish music brought some amusement to the day.	Monday, December 17: “If you say you are happy, then I say that you have made me exuberant.” But unfortunately he is again not quite well today. He works nevertheless. In the afternoon he goes to the tailor’s to see about a Christmas suit for Fidi. He has a mind not to reply to the conductor Eckert at all. Many thoughts come my way, things said to me under the influence of all kinds of situations, feelings, and occasions. I should like to write them all down for the children. Over coffee R. spoke to Herr v. W. about what he said in his essays concerning the disconsolate metaphysics of Schopenhauer: “What greater consolation can there be than to tell people that this existence is a trivial one? We can then feel inside ourselves hope for another existence, which we cannot in any way visualize and about which nothing can be said, but the feeling alone enables us to enjoy it.” He also says that W[olzogen] interprets Faust from too Christian a viewpoint; there is no love in Faust, love comes from above, at the end, and it is to Goethe’s eternal credit that he concluded his work thus. In Faust himself there is nothing but restless striving. In the evening the history of the Arabs. Much amusement over Fidi, who sings a sort of Turkish music in his sleep.
December 18, 1877	255	The day began with unsettling dreams on both sides, but the mood improved as he worked and played new music from Parsifal. Their exchange over her admiration showed mutual affection and confidence, while a comic fear in the palace gardens provided fresh laughter. Later, he corrected the album sonata and spoke with deep reverence about Bach, calling one prelude a decisive influence.	Tuesday, December 18: R. dreamed that I was embittered, estranged from him. I dreamed of a fight between swans and dogs, in which R., going to the help of Rus, was dragged into the water, but emerged from it at once. R. works and plays me Kundry’s “withdrawal to the bushes” and the subsequent words of Gurnemanz. It is utterly splendid, and when I show my delight in it to him, he says, “Yes, one must be good to me, then everything is all right.” “Am I worthy of being good to you?” “Yes, beyond all bounds you are, and in you I know what that means, for you are someone who makes an impression.” Laughter. In the afternoon he goes out, and afterward tells me that in the palace gardens he saw a man beating the snow regularly with his stick; he kept out of his way, having no desire to be hit on the head and murdered by a lunatic. We laugh over this fear. Written across the margin of this whole page: “News of the capitulation of Plevna on very honorable terms for Osman Pasha.” He corrects the “album sonata.” In the evening the history of the Arabs, then two preludes from Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, played very movingly by R.; of the one in [illegible], he says: “That gave me my direction. It is incredible how many things in music passed me by without leaving any impression, but that determined me. It is infinite! No one else has ever done anything like it!” Weber’s birthday!
December 19, 1877	109	He declared that he needed nothing beyond what he already had and wanted only to enjoy his happiness quietly. Work continued, and two cheese deliveries from different places became a source of delight and humor. The day ended with irritation at an unwelcome follower and sadness that Fidi did not share a gift with his sisters.	Wednesday, December 19: R. says he needs nobody; he has everything he needs for his happiness, everything. He wants only to enjoy it in peace. He works. Arrival of a large Gloucester cheese from Herr Schlesinger, which gives R. great pleasure. In the evening we hear from London of the dispatch of another cheese, Stilton, which makes us laugh. R. was once again followed by an individual who inspired no great feeling of trust in him. He said: “I wouldn’t have offered him a pinch of snuff from my box.” Sorrow over Fidi, who, quite contrary to his usual habit, does not share something we gave him with his sisters.
December 20, 1877	117	He felt unwell and dissatisfied with his work, unable to settle into his usual confidence. His remark about being in a rhythmic struggle captured how disoriented he felt that morning. She worried through the evening, while they also laughed at MacMahon's dramatic speech about honor and duty.	Thursday, December 20: R. does not feel very well. He tries to work but is not satisfied with what he does. He does not go out, but he has a good appetite in the evening; he laughs over it and says: “If you knew what is bothering me! It is a rhythmical battle. This morning I suddenly understood none of my things.” In the evening we read the history of the Arabs. Early to bed. I struggle with feelings of alarm, which always assail me when R. is not quite well. We joke a lot about MacMahon, who declares amid tears that people wish to take away his honor, which he would sacrifice for the well-being of his country!
December 21, 1877	155	The day moves between holiday preparations, domestic errands, and Wagner's ongoing composition work. The diarist notes his playful theorizing about music and language while they continue their evening reading in history and scholarship.	Friday, December 21: Viennese artists are planning a Germania procession, and they ask R. in extravagant phrases to compose the music for it. How curious the disparity is between devotion of this kind and what really inspires R.’s spirit! Took care of Fidi’s Christmas with R. R. has survived his rhythmical battle and tells me when he comes from his work, “Today I have set a philosophical precept to music: ‘Hence space becomes time.’” He says he is now about to start on something in which “bits of dramatic nonsense” will be of no help to him! In the evening, the history of the Arabs, in which I am put off both by Herr Dozy’s view of the Goths and by Count Baudissin’s negligent translation. “None of these people know our language,” says R. “They haven’t studied Grimm, and are still basing themselves on Lessing. Good God, whether fuf or vof - how vivid Grimm makes it all!”
December 22, 1877	49	A fresh copy of the Parsifal text arrives, and Wagner is pleased with the day's musical progress. After practical outings together, the evening is spent in their usual pattern of reading and listening.	Saturday, December 22: Arrival of the copies of the Parsifal text; R. works, and is satisfied with a “middle voice” he wrote today. We go out together once more to the tailor’s, then to the palace gardens. In the evening the history of the Arabs and an interlude from Rapp’s col...
December 23, 1877	139	They decorate the Christmas tree while Wagner continues working and remains in decent health. The first reactions to Parsifal are disappointing, but the family evening is softened by a moving story, a Goethe passage, and more reading aloud.	Sunday, December 23: Decorating the tree. R. works and is feeling tolerably well. Unfortunately, the first reactions to Parsifal to reach us are a very silly, sprawling letter and a review in the Börsen-Courier.... But despite these, R. works in the afternoon. In the evening he reads the children a very pretty and moving story from the Fliegende Blätter, called “The Yellowhammer.” Then, in the middle of a general conversation, he picks up a volume of Goethe and points significantly to the words “But nothing could compare with their contentment...” which have echoed so profoundly throughout our life together. A moment of deep emotion, enjoyed in silence! We continued with the history of the Arabs. While reading the stories about the martyrs, R. exclaims to me, “That would have been a time for you - you wouldn’t have stayed two days alive!”
December 24, 1877	373	Christmas Eve is filled with dreams, secretive preparation, and affectionate surprises for the household. The celebration peaks in a warm family gathering, music, gifts, and a sense of shared joy that leaves the writer deeply moved.	Monday, December 24: R. dreamed of a friendly association with Lachner, who, in a performance of Fidelio, cut out the Allegro in the Overture. “This might have a deeper significance,” R. thought to himself, “since the Overture does not really fit the work.” But when he discovered that L. had inserted a chorus of his own (reapers or something of that sort) into the beginning, he lost patience. Then he found himself in a hall full of ancient busts, but they were talking, and it seemed that one of them was [Wilhelmine] Schröder-Devrient, whereupon R. said to himself, “I would not like to dream that I kissed her, for it is not good to kiss dead people in dreams.” R. does some work; I was occupied all day long by the Christkind. At last, at about 6 o’clock, I came into the salon and was greeted with a song, “Welcome, dear Christ!” When he came home and saw the house and “all its joys,” it had occurred to R. that Christ was not only a “bringer of salvation,” but a “bringer of joy” as well. Under Lulu’s supervision the children learned the words at once and sang them very nicely. R. had built up a splendid pile for me, including the “manuscript,” inscribed “from the one who loves you” (he wrote “ripF” - Loldi’s word for “liebt” - to rhyme with “Manuskript”), he says, “One must be able to joke about the sublimest of things” - that is a sign of happiness! And a thousand other things, all sought out with kindness and loving care. [Attached to this page: a water-color drawing with the inscription, “Japanese negligé given to me by Richard, Christmas 1877.”] All this had led to a long correspondence between him and Judith, during which it had unfortunately become clear to him that even the best of French people cannot overcome certain limitations. For instance, Judith cannot believe that it is impossible to translate Parsifal into French! But of course they do not know the other thing. Splendid evening, the children bubbling over, memories of Italy, Eva sings “The delight and of transfigured pain!” R. and I went to bed at 11 o’clock; we could still hear the bells. R.’s words to me were overwhelming.
December 25, 1877	102	Christmas Day begins with rare sunshine and a festive walk with the children. The day is marked by family cheer, a formal toast, and an evening of reading Dante and hearing music from Parsifal.	Tuesday, December 25: Really brilliant sunshine, the first time in two months! R. says to me, “Your birthday is my Sunday!” He decides on a walk with the children before lunch. We go into the palace gardens; Siegfried’s new suit, in old Germanic style, gives us much pleasure. A merry meal. R. solemnly proposes my health. In the evening the history of the Arabs again, after which R. reads the first three cantos of the Divina commedia to our great delight; then I ask him for something from Parsifal, and he plays Gurnemanz’s narration, the entrance of Parsifal - divine blessings for my birthday!
December 26, 1877	166	Wagner has a troubling dream about death, but then turns back to composition with renewed energy. The evening is devoted to Arab history and Dante, which inspires admiration for poetry that can reveal beauty within suffering.	Wednesday, December 26: R. dreamed that Fidi and I had died and he was carrying a relief of us both in his pocket. He went to show it to Brandt, who said, “How can you always carry such a thing around with you? Anyway, I find a weeping man a miserable sight.” “Ah,” thought R., “now I see this man in his true colors!” Yesterday afternoon, while I was still in the salon, R. was delighted with a major third - F sharp and A sharp leading to F and A - which had just occurred to him. Today he works it out in the march of the Knights of the Holy Grail. In the evening the history of the Arabs and two cantos from the Divina commedia, read by R. “How wonderful, how impressive,” said R., “is Francesca’s story, and how great the poet who can make us accept so terrible a view of life, indeed, make us feel joy and delight in spite of all the horrors!”
December 27, 1877	185	A piano arrangement of the Idyll pleases Wagner, and he continues refining the Grail March. The writer ends the day overwhelmed by the depth of their bond and by the wish to withdraw from public life into a protected shared existence.	Thursday, December 27: Herr [Josef] R[ubinstein] sends his piano arrangement of the Idyll, and R. is pleased with the wonderful, cherished work! R. works on the “Holy Grail March” and says he must go to Marienbad or Ems next year to hear it - it is the proper march for a spa! I file away the letters of 1877. In the afternoon, a walk with R. in the palace gardens. When we separate in the evening and he speaks to me the sacred and solemn words of love, I feel transported and ask myself what I have done to deserve such happiness. I should like to be silent forever, to disappear, to know nothing, hear nothing, do nothing except serve him - him alone! I am filled with dread when I think of the world and reflect that masks and grimaces can still disturb this harmony, this life of ours - performances, concerts, travels, all of this is torture; all I want is to help him, here in this sheltering house, to make things bearable for him, and then together with him to take leave of this world!
December 28, 1877	119	Wagner works on the march, checks it carefully against possible plagiarism, and handles correspondence and political gossip. The evening brings conversation about Bayreuth and its prospects, along with gifts and practical plans.	Friday, December 28: R. works on the “Holy Grail March”; he has cut out the crystal bells. He looked again at my father’s Die von Strassburg to make sure he has not committed plagiarism. Visit to Pasha, whom R. calls a hero. We laugh over the pitiful MacMahon, a French Protestant government! England is in difficulties, and Disraeli’s resignation is probable. In the afternoon R. writes to Eckert about Walküre and quotes from the Fliegende Blätter: to a person who demands half a pint one replies, “Wait till you are thirsty enough for a whole one.” Gifts from the King, a china service, candlesticks, etc. In the evening R. discusses with Dr. Schemann a league of small towns for the benefit of Bayreuth.
December 29, 1877	107	The writer spends the day cleaning, writing letters, and reflecting on both recent and distant memories. Wagner makes progress on the march and a counterpoint passage, and the night closes with a tender, almost mystical exchange about union and death.	Saturday, December 29: R. works. I clean up, write letters, and look back in emotion on the most recent as well as the most distant past! R. works on his “Spa March” and comes to me at midday very pleased with a piece of counterpoint. We eat alone together upstairs, since I am not very well. We drink to the counterpoint, in splendid spirits. In the evening R. writes to the King and lets me read his fine letter. When I asked him whether he had not discovered a means of performing magic, of making me cease to be, absorbing me into himself, he pointed a finger toward our tomb.
December 30, 1877	95	A thaw sets in as Wagner works and the household turns to tidying and correspondence. The day ends with the march sounding especially powerful and with renewed enthusiasm for Dante's vivid and observant poetry.	Sunday, December 30: R. works. For me, much tidying up and letters. A thaw has set in, and R. goes walking in the palace gardens with the dogs. In the evening the history of the Arabs, the Normans in the South, uncongenial people, lacking poetry and religion. After that the Divina commedia with ever-increasing delight. How truly observed it all is! One can understand the meaning of Michelangelo’s conceptions from this poem, which shows that it is not abstract thoughts, not emotions, which make a poet, but observation. R. plays me his “March,” which now sounds overwhelmingly splendid!
December 31, 1877	67	Lunch was delayed so R. could finish a piece of work in ink before the day moved on. The evening felt festive and reflective, with New Year’s customs, tree lighting, and music shaping a sense of joy. Despite the hardships of the year, the writer closes it with deep gratitude and inward peace.	Monday, December 31: R. orders lunch an hour later so that he can work something out in ink. A merry New Year’s Eve, telling fortunes with molten lead and lighting the tree, Divina commedia and the strains of Parsifal. How inwardly content and inwardly inspired are we as we come to the end of this so difficult year! “Now thank we all our God” oh, how I thank him!
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