‘Yes, people have no idea how divorced from experience and reality these things happen, and how long one is nourished by one’s youth! … when the German Emperor exclaims, ‘How deeply Wagner must have been in love at that time,’ it is really quite ridiculous. – If that were so, I should now be writing ‘Parsifal’ on account of my connections with the Christian church, and you would be Kundry! No, I just felt the need to go to the very limit musically, as if I had been writing a symphony.” [939W-{9/28/78}CD Vol. II, p. 158]
[940W-{10/1/78} CD Vol. II, p. 160]
[P. 160] “Talking of Haeckel’s theories, R. is led to Kant’s and Laplace’s theories of the origin of the world, and he also speaks about the Indian ‘breath’ (an image he much admires), which would form with the ending of the world and is the same thing as what humans understand by desire. Compared with such a myth the whole Jewish mythology is just hack work.” [940W-{10/1/78} CD Vol. II, p. 160]
[941W-{10/1/78}CD Vol. II, p. 161]
[P. 161] “Then ‘Tristan’, and R. talks again of his need at that time to push himself to the limit musically, since in the ‘Nibelungen’ the requirements of the drama frequently forced him to restrict the musical expression.” [941W-{10/1/78}CD Vol. II, p. 161]
[942W-{10/6/78}CD Vol. II, p. 164]
[P. 164] “Over coffee he speaks about the curiousness of the musical profession and how he has been reproached for the eternal 4/4 time in ‘Lohengrin’: ‘I have in fact used ¾ time in both ‘Tannhaeuser’ and ‘L.’, but only where it is needed, in the ‘Pilgrim’s Chorus,’ in the prayer before the duel; but otherwise the art lies in one’s ability to stick to Oratio Directa and not to tell oneself: now I must make a change, just for change’s sake. Musicians are in fact very petty people who don’t know what is important, he says … .” [942W-{10/6/78}CD Vol. II, p. 164]
[943W-{10/8/78} CD Vol. II, p. 167]
[P. 167] “R. recalls King Henry IV’s words on the book of fate: ‘What philosophical maxims Sh. illuminates just through his observation and vividness of expression! Like, for instance, Othello’s remark that we ‘can call these delicate creatures ours, and not their appetites.’ Othello’s ‘O misery!’ as Iago goes on talking, which shows that he is becoming aware of a cruel world hitherto unimagined … .” [943W-{10/8/78} CD Vol. II, p. 167]
[944W-{10/10/78}CD Vol. II, p. 168]
[P. 168] {FEUER} “He reads me a splendid extract from a letter by Seneca about death (quoted by Lecky) and says how much to be preferred are the ideas of the ancient world to those of the church today, whose power is rooted in the fear of death, or, rather, the life after death.” [944W-{10/10/78}CD Vol. II, p. 168]
