Richard Wagner,
22 de Maio

Hoje é o aniversário de Richard Wagner. Considerei interessante propor-vos uma página do famoso "Diário" de Cosima, precisamente no dia em que o seu marido completava 78 anos.

Para o efeito, com o propósito de vos tornar acessível um texto cujo original foi escrito em alemão, socorri-me do Vol. II: 1878-1883, editado e anotado por Martin Gregor-Dellin e Dietrich Mack, traduzido para Inglês, com Introdução, Postscripto e Notas Adicionais por Geoffrey Skelton, New York, NY : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.


"(...) Sunday, May 22, 1881:

R. slept well; the Flower Greeting takes place a 8 o'clock and is very successful, the clock presented by Fidi-Parsifal delights R., and he is pleased with the flower costumes. The coats of arms of the Wagner Society towns genuinely surprise him, and he is pleased with the ceiling. In a mood of divine happiness he strolls to the summerhouse with me in the blue robe, and we exchange gold pens and little poems! Our lunch table consists of: Standhartners 3 (with Gustav!), Ritters (the parents), the Count, Jouk., Boni, Lusch, and Fidi; in the hall Eva, Loldi, Ferdi Jager, Julchen and Elsa; the latter two have to slip away unnoticed, so that the singing of the verse will float down from the gallery. Siegfried speaks Stein's poem very well, splendidly proposing the health of eternal youth, and then in a full voice Elsa movingly sings 'Nicht Gut noch Pracht,' etc., from above.---Over coffee Faf from the Festival Theater appears with the program for this evening on his back. The dear good children act out the little farces by Lope and Sachs magnificently, and Lusch speaks Wolz's linking epilogue particularly well. To the conclusion of the Sachs play J. Rub. linked the Prelude to Die Msinger, and when R. went into the salon, the children, in different costumes, sang his 'Gruss der Getreuen'; at the conclusion of the evening, after the meal, came the 'Kaisermarsch,' with altered text. All splendidly done by the children, though we are not entirely successful in sustaining the mood. Before lunch R. was upset by the military band, which he---somewhat to my concern---had allowed to take part, and it required Siegfried's toast to raise his spirits again. In the evening he was irked by the dullness of our friends, he asked Standhartner to remain behind, without considering that the stepson [G. Schönaich] would also then remain, and the presence of this man whom he cannot bear kept him from expressing all that was in his heart, and that made him almost painfully unhappy. The successful parts are what delighted me---the fact that unbidden things intervene no longer bothers me, however much it once used to pain me: I keep remembering that 'all transient things are but an image. (...)"
 
E, aqui tendes, comemorando a efeméride, a "Kaisermarsch", obra cujo título me permiti destacar nas palavras transcritas, numa excelente interpretação da London Symphony Orchestra, sob a direcção de Marek Janowski. A ilustração da gravação reproduz uma aguarela de Caspar David Friedrich.

Boa audição!


http://youtu.be/ytJeY0OIBHw