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 March 1877 (30 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
March 1, 1877	62	Financial concerns dominate the morning, though the weather brightens later. In the evening they finish reading The Peace, and its comic brilliance leaves them with a dark recognition of how ruin can be wrapped in laughter.	Thursday, March 1: Day for the accounts - we are spending much money, very much, God help us! But at last a fine, glittering sky. R. goes out; in the evening we read The Peace to the end, exactly the amount R. can read with me - it is enough to numb us with its genius: the Athenians went laughing to their downfall.
March 2, 1877	79	The day is filled with work involving the children, while disappointment grows over the singers needed for London. Hostile reactions from the press add to the irritation, and the evening shifts to a new reading project about India.	Friday, March 2: Continual work with the children; R. not exactly encouraged by the response of the singers who are wanted in London with him. He compares actors to a stag that does nothing as long as it is shy and frightened, but, if one is kind to it, butts one with its horns! A very malicious newspaper is sent to us from England, and there is also some mockery from Vienna. In the evening we begin Lassen’s book on India.
March 3, 1877	87	Work continues, but his health and temper deteriorate, and bitterness takes over by evening. He turns away from the public sphere and resolves that once London is behind him, he wants little more to do with theaters or audiences.	Saturday, March 3: Work with the children, and R. in his room, working, as I thought, on Parsifal. But he is not well, and in the evening a mood of great bitterness again gets the upper hand. He wants to have nothing more to do with the public once London has been put behind him; then he will sell his Nibelungen work to all and sundry, since fragments of it are already being played all over the place anyway, and never give any more thought to a theater.
March 4, 1877	112	She handles correspondence while he appears in a better mood, though both are unsettled by the silence from London. The evening is spent in reading, and her encounter with Oedipus at Colonus leaves her especially impressed by its human realism and force.	Sunday, March 4: Day of letters for me; R. in more cheerful mood, thank goodness. But we are surprised not to hear from London - we have now come so far that we wish for that! ... In the evening read Lassen’s books on India; R. is reading my mother’s history of Holland by himself, is very conscious of the woman’s approach, but he likes that, apart from the French phrases about God. ... I read Oedipus at Colonus and am deeply moved; its realism in particular amazes me: Oedipus, so vehement, so unresigned, so profane, reminds me of King Lear, and how individual are Creon and Theseus! In Aeschylus everything is more idealized.
March 5, 1877	31	The anniversary of her mother's death leads her into a quiet day of remembrance and a letter to an old friend. Reading about India continues, though the book does not fully satisfy him.	Monday, March 5: Anniversary of my mother’s death. I write to her friend, M. Tribert, and spend the day in silent thought. Started Lassen’s books on India; R. not oversatisfied with them.
March 6, 1877	71	A letter from her father brings hopeful news for Hans, and she allows herself to wonder whether her prayers have had an effect. The same message also casts doubt on the London journey, and the day ends with more reading before turning to Goethe's poems.	Tuesday, March 6: My father sends me a letter from Herr Ullmann in which there is first of all mention of an important piece of news for Hans. Have my prayers been heard? Has he been vouchsafed a little friendliness? ... In the same letter there is also talk of our journey to London, for which the auspices are not thought very favorable. Read Lassen in the evening. After that, poems by Goethe.
March 7, 1877	75	The day carried a mix of discouragement and artistic comfort: a painful letter from Clemens and news of hostile uses of Die Walkiire darkened the mood. Even so, the evening with Goethe’s poetry restored some pleasure.	Wednesday, March 7: Life the same; sad letter from nephew Clemens, everything there utterly withered! Many telegrams arrived yesterday from Vienna about the “success” of Die Walküre, which has been employed from the very start to denigrate the festival performances. Feelings of bitterness: the work, gained by perfidious means, is being used to make fun of its author! Once more spent the evening with Goethe, to our great pleasure. Read poems from the second and third volumes.
March 8, 1877	41	Routine work with the children and an unpleasant gray day left the atmosphere subdued. Concerns stirred by Walkiire lingered, and the evening reading of Goethe ended with disagreement over a poem that could not be defended to R.'s satisfaction.	Thursday, March 8: Work with the children, a walk, the weather not pleasant, gray, sunless ... Gloomy thoughts, brought about by Die Walküre. In the evening poems by Goethe. R. dissatisfied with the poem to Oken, which I seek in vain to defend.
March 9, 1877	88	Travel to Meiningen went smoothly and was marked by a warm reception at court and comfortable quarters. The evening brought theater, where the performances ranged from touching to overextended, followed by friendly tea and conversation with the ducal couple.	Friday, March 9: Departure for Meiningen; arrival at 4 o’clock, the Duke and his wife receive us on the steps of the palace, in which we are given very fine rooms. To the theater in the evening: Esther and Le Malade imaginaire with the promotion scene, the latter much too long drawn out, but the comedy excellently done; Esther very touching in spite of many weaknesses — “the sentimentality good, no naiveté,” R. says. In the evening the Duke and his wife have tea in our rooms, cordial and cheerful conversation.
March 10, 1877	65	The visit continued with many formal honors, including music, rehearsal, and a banquet that went very pleasantly. In the afternoon and evening, court interactions became especially unusual, and the concert left R. feeling unwell toward the end.	Saturday, March 10: All kinds of marks of attention, quartet from Rheingold, military band, rehearsal in the palace of the Idyll, [Liszt’s] Festklänge and the Faust Overture. Banquet at 2 o’clock, very pleasant. Afterward I am received by Princess Marie and by the Dowager Duchess, which seems very extraordinary in view of the hostility between the two Courts. In the evening, court concert. R. unwell at the end.
March 11, 1877	205	The court’s attention remained intense, but R. firmly declined an offered decoration. The day also included pointed political and theatrical conversations, and the performance of Julius Caesar overcame early worries through a few standout scenes before ending with another cordial gathering.	Sunday, March 11: Received calls from the various ladies of the Court, then to Frau v. Heldburg and received by the Duke; offer of the Commander’s Cross, the acceptance of which I declare to be unfortunately impossible. R. with Princess Marie, who is in fact an “anti-Wagnerian,” as the Duke said with a smile, then with Duke Bernhard, who speaks very critically about the Meiningen theater (everything concentrated on the externals, they cannot speak properly), very graciously received everywhere. After that a large banquet. The Duke had forbidden the use of any of R.’s compositions as table music, whereupon R. put the “Huldigungsmarsch” on the program. In the evening Julius Caesar. Before the theater a walk through Meiningen with the Duke; R. says, “The river Werra is my friend.” Since Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Caesar were only mediocre, I was very worried at the beginning for R., who was sitting with me at the Duke’s side in the central box; but the assassination of Caesar, the Marcus Antonius (Herr Dettmer from Dresden), and the great street scene were so splendid that allowances were willingly made, and the impression produced by this incomparable work again triumphed over all shortcomings in the presentation. In the evening a cordial tea party in our rooms again.
March 12, 1877	79	They parted from their gracious host and heard unflattering stories about Bodenstedt on the way out. The return trip was festive with flowers, and the evening at home was quiet, with only some fatigue remaining.	Monday, March 12: Took our leave of the friendly, serious-minded gentleman, to whom R. could say in all honesty that he would like to give proof of his gratitude. We were told very dismal things about the poet Bodenstedt, who, while still drawing his full salary, talks derogatorily about the Duke and his wife wherever he goes! Departure at 10 o’clock, decorated with flowers, arrival at 4 o’clock, much to tell the children. In the evening felt well, though a little tired.
March 13, 1877	83	Work resumed, though London business was still unsettled and troubling news arrived about Countess Voss. R. answered the Duke with a generous letter and sent his collected works, while the evening was spent reading criticism and classical scholarship.	Tuesday, March 13: Started work again! London arrangements still not clear. Sad news of Countess Voss, she is going blind! R. writes a splendid letter to the Duke and sends him his collected writings. In the evening we read a very nice article by a Dr. Gehring about Die Walküre in Vienna (Deutsche Zeitung), in which at least hints are made about the impertinence of this production and the remarks about Bayreuth connected with it. Afterward read F. Schlegel’s Poetry of the Greeks and Romans.
March 14, 1877	104	R. was deeply absorbed in shaping a new stage work, revising names and settling on Parsifal and Kundry. Later he turned to Shakespeare and Plutarch, discussing Caesar as a worn, understated figure rather than a grand hero.	Wednesday, March 14: R. is writing his stage dedication play; at lunch he tells me: “She will be called Gundrigia, the weaver of war,” but then he decides to keep to “Kundry.” And he will be called Parsifal. In the evening he reads me the scenes in Shakespeare’s play in which Julius Caesar appears, and says he must be seen throughout as an eccentric and tired man, as in Plutarch, when he once says that Brutus might at least wait “until the tired flesh fell away” from him — a little like plain and somber, his Caesar, simple and tired! He reads Brutus’s life in Plutarch.
March 15, 1877	78	The household was burdened by childcare, domestic complications, and disappointing correspondence. In contrast, the London contract arrived in acceptable form and was signed promptly, though the evening was still consumed by more letter-writing and R.'s low spirits.	Thursday, March 15: R. writes, I work with the children and deal with domestic troubles and difficulties! A letter from Herr Hillebrand, in reply to R.’s, gives little pleasure. On the other hand, Herr Niemann writes very nicely; we have sent him our Kos (the little dog), with some sorrow; R. provides verses for him. We also receive the contract from London, which is very reasonable and is signed at once. In the evening much writing to England, etc. R. despondent.
March 16, 1877	61	R. reflected on how natural musical phrasing can make rhyme unnecessary, showing him still occupied with poetic technique. News from Turin reported a strong reception for Lohengrin, while letters from abroad and a serious reply to Daniella kept the day busy.	Friday, March 16: R. talks about his verses; he has not yet used a rhyme: the more natural the music, he says, the less appropriate an end rhyme. Telegram from Turin about the success of Lohengrin there. In the evening a long letter from Herr Hodge, asking for full details. I reply along with R. Wrote to Daniella very seriously about her return home.
March 17, 1877	62	The day was divided between ordinary household duties and encouraging artistic company, including a kind letter from the Duke of Meiningen and a visit from Brassin, which brought back Bayreuth memories. The evening concert by amateurs was disappointing, with only Boni standing out as a source of enjoyment.	Saturday, March 17: R. works, and I, in my own way, also with the children. Very nice letter from the Duke of Meiningen, revealing all his good and simple character. Our good Brassin, who has come here from Breslau for a concert, eats with us; memories of Bayreuth! In the evening a dismal concert by the amateurs, in which Boni alone gives me pleasure.
March 18, 1877	29	After church, the morning continued with music in the open air and the familiar march from the Nibelung cycle. Later she visited the old Baroness Aufsess while R. concentrated on shaping the London program, now grown to an imposing length.	Sunday, March 18: To church with Boni, afterward promenade music, the Nibelungen march ... In the afternoon with old Baroness Aufsess. R. is working out his London program, with 46 items.
March 19, 1877	110	Despite the pressure of London preparations, R. still managed to keep working on Parsifal, though the rest of the day was consumed by calculations and practical burdens. The entry also notes a legal dispute with a photographer, a discussion of Plutarch, and the growing success of Die Walkiire in Vienna, which she views with some irony and admiration.	Monday, March 19: In spite of London and everything else, R. still finds the will-power to continue writing Parsifal in the morning. The afternoon does indeed pass in a fever of reckoning, as he says, since his thoughts and deeds are now fixed on London. Legal proceedings with a photographer here, and Antigone. After lunch R. showed me the remarkable passage in Plutarch in which Cassius expatiates to Brutus about visions. In Vienna the fourth performance of Die Walküre with increasing success; the Emperor saw it for the third time, which is considered very remarkable. It seems to me that a tried and tested prince might well be able to understand Wotan.
March 20, 1877	38	Boni’s birthday was marked while she reorganized the children’s rooms, giving the household a more settled shape. R. continued his work on Parsifal in the morning and spent the evening absorbed in the London program nearly until nightfall.	Tuesday, March 20: Boni’s fourteen years are celebrated, and I arrange Siegfried’s new room downstairs and Daniella’s room upstairs. R. works on Parsifal in the morning, and in the evening until nearly ten on arranging the program for London.
March 21, 1877	62	With spring beginning, the day was calmer, featuring lessons, a walk in pleasant weather, and steady writing from R. Yet the evening brought a fruitless trip to the station for an expected family arrival that never happened, along with the arrival of a proof from a biography of R.	Wednesday, March 21: First day of spring; lessons and a walk in fine weather. R. writing his text in the morning, slaving in the evening. At a late hour to the railroad station, having received word from Weimar that my father would be arriving; but he did not come. I receive from Kassel a proof of the year 1870 in Glasenapp’s biography of R.
March 22, 1877	77	A conversation about refinement and personal appearance turned into a pointed reflection on human taste and social disgust. The rest of the day was dominated by R.’s work and the exhausting stream of letters and telegrams tied to the London concerts, leaving little room for shared reading.	Thursday, March 22: “For such as you a longing for nobility is the source of much disgust,” R. said to me today when I told him how many men must seem unbearable to women, simply on account of their lack of cleanliness. He works in the morning, while in the evening there are regularly problems to be dealt with concerning the London concerts; no chance now of reading together, letters and countless telegrams! Munich as always cowardly and perfidious.
March 23, 1877	130	She records a striking line from R. and then notes that the day proceeded much as before, with concert logistics continuing to intrude. Her own reading leads her into disagreement with Schlegel’s views on Sophocles, as she questions his interpretation of Jocasta and Oedipus.	Friday, March 23: “Powerless to destroy the sin within himself, he turned against himself his blaspheming hand, which then the guardian of the Grail contemptuously rejected” these are today’s lines, which R. quotes to me. Otherwise life continues the same; Herr Unger arrives to discuss the concert arrangements. I have recently been reading some chapters in Schlegel, among other things his judgment on Sophocles! I was very astonished to read of Jocasta’s “frivolity,” whereas her vehement mockery of the oracle had always appeared to me as a passionate urge to bring the investigations to an end. I am also utterly unable to find any mild resignation in Oedipus at Colonus. It is, rather, the passionate outcry against Creon and his son which strikes one, and it frequently reminds me of King Lear.
March 24, 1877	105	A memorable phrase from R. sets the tone for a day of visitors and lively conversation, especially with her father. News from Vienna made Die Walkiire seem a major triumph, and Wagner’s supporters were even discussing a substantial reward to persuade him to complete the remaining works.	Saturday, March 24: “Thou seest, my son; here time becomes space” this R. quotes to me today. Arrival of Lusch at 9 o’clock, at 11 o’clock my father; much pleasurable chat, mostly concerning Vienna, where my father played for the Beethoven memorial. Die Walküre seems to be enjoying an enormous success. Princess Metternich declares there can never be too much of the “Wagner craze,” and my father received instructions to offer 20,000 marks and a cross, perhaps even a grand ribbon, if R. would consent to have the other three works done! R. requests that the Emperor should announce this wish to him through his minister Hofmann.
March 25, 1877	68	Palm Sunday was spent in a family and religious rhythm, beginning with church and followed by a meal with her father. The day also included a discussion of the London undertaking and an attempt by R. to recruit Dr. Forster to take over the festival, which met with some openness.	Sunday, March 25: Palm Sunday. To church with the children, afterward to the Catholic church to fetch my father. Merry meal together; in the evening told him much about our London undertaking. Postscript to Palm Sunday: Dr. Forster from Leipzig here. R. tries to persuade him to take over the festival, and then he would also allow him to do the work in Leipzig. Dr. Forster seemed not entirely unwilling.
March 26, 1877	40	The day centered on work at home: she occupied herself with the children while R. continued on Parsifal and her father revised proofs of his Chopin material. Their family lunch brought the different strands together, and the evening ended with her father performing a piece from his own collection.	Monday, March 26: Work with the children, R. on Parsifal, my father correcting proofs of his Chopin, and we came together at lunchtime and told what we had done. In the evening my father plays the Bénédiction de Dieu from his Harmonies.
March 27, 1877	99	The day was consumed by unresolved practical troubles: confusion in London, tense negotiations with singers and officials, and repeated demands for written consent before anyone would release performers. Worry deepened after alarming reports from Ullmann suggesting the project might fail financially, though the visit from Feustel offered a brief human interruption.	Tuesday, March 27: The same life, with the addition that there is still much confusion in London, that we are still not at one with our singers, that Herr v. Perfall is demanding a direct request from R. before giving leave to Schlosser, likewise Herr v. Hülsen and the Grand Duke of Schwerin, even the conductor Wiillner before releasing two students from the Conservatoire, etc., etc. On top of that, alarming letters from Herr Ullmann, giving his opinion that we shall not achieve financial success. He also talks about having received a dismal letter from Hans. Visit from friend Feustel.
March 28, 1877	106	Amid difficult business matters, work on Parsifal moved forward, which brought some relief despite the late-night strain. Richter arrived with money and a new request, but Wagner held to the earlier position, while criticism of the Vienna Walküre performance colored the mood.	Wednesday, March 28: God be praised! R. is continuing to work on Parsifal, even though it means we sometimes have to deal with repugnant business matters till late in the night. Herr Hodge asks for a postponement of the guaranteed payment; we grant it to him through the lawyer. Arrival of Richter, very vulgarly bringing the 20,000 marks, with the request that R. should sign a declaration of consent to the performance of the other three works. R. is standing by what my father has written to Standhartner. Richter praises Die Walküre in Vienna. From my father's account, I gather that it lacks all dedication and nobility.
March 29, 1877	118	The day carried a solemn, penitential tone, and the diary dwells on tears, prayer, and the spiritual weight of the season. At the same time, there was practical and artistic progress: Heckel visited, discussion continued about the future of the Wagner Societies, and the first act of Parsifal was completed. Good Friday then became a quiet, reflective day marked by church, devotion, and music at home.	Thursday, March 29: Maundy (mourning) Thursday - many tears in my heart, may the Saviour receive them graciously! Richter departs; our good Heckel arrives, and he is going on from here to a Wagner Society meeting in Leipzig. R. tells him he would like the Societies to remain in existence, even though he cannot yet say for certain whither their activities should be directed. Today R. concludes the first act of Parsifal. Friday, March 30: Good Friday, prayer, church, the Passion according to Saint John with the younger children. Stillness and meditation. In the evening my father plays his Funérailles and Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, to the great delight of R. and myself. Contemplative day, one wish to the Redeemer!
March 31, 1877	125	London complications continued to pile up, forcing the writer to handle letters, orchestra-part problems, worried singers, and rising costs. Even so, the household found comfort in music, and the Easter gathering in the evening went well, with the family and guests enjoying the performance at home.	Saturday, March 31: For R., all too many London problems, which I actively share to the extent that I have to write the letters; Herr Unger sluggish, alarmed by having to learn Tristan! Problems with orchestra parts, nobody yet sure where to obtain them all. And Messrs. Hodge and Essex are getting nervous about the costs. But music at home nevertheless - Hungaria and Fasso; in the minuet of the latter my father says, "What is proper." Easter Sunday, April 1: No church for me on account of preparations for the evening, for which I have invited about 200 Bayreuth people. It comes off very well, since my father is kind enough to play Saint Francois de Paule marchant sur les flots and R. is in good spirits.
No diary entries found.