cheerful subject, and not in the least likely to over-excite my nerves, I felt I must write it out in spite of the doctor’s orders.  I therefore proceeded to do this, and hoped it might free me from the thrall of the idea of Lohengrin; but I was mistaken; for no sooner had I got into my bath at noon, than I felt an overpowering desire to write out Lohengrin, and this longing so overcame me that I could not wait the prescribed hour for the bath, but when a few minutes elapsed, jumped out and, barely giving myself time to dress, ran home to write out what I had in my mind.  I repeated this for several days until the complete sketch of Lohengrin was on paper.

The doctor then told me I had better give up taking the waters and baths, saying emphatically that I was quite unfit for such cures.  My excitement had grown to such an extent that even my efforts to sleep as a rule ended only in nocturnal adventures.  Among some interesting excursions that we made at this time, one to Eger fascinated me particularly, on account of its association with Wallenstein and of the peculiar costumes of the inhabitants.

In mid-August we travelled back to Dresden, where my friends were glad to see me in such good spirits; as for myself, I felt as if I had wings.  In September, when all our singers had returned from their summer holidays, I resumed the rehearsals of Tannhauser with great earnestness.  We had now got so far, at least with the musical part of the performance, that the possible date of the production seemed quite close at hand.  Schroder-Devrient was one of the first to realise the extraordinary difficulties which the production of Tannhauser would entail.  And, indeed, she saw these difficulties so clearly that, to my great discomfiture, she was able to lay them all before me.  Once, when I called upon her, she read the principal passages aloud with great feeling and force, and then she asked me how I could have been so simple-minded as to have thought that so childish a creature as Tichatschek would be able to find the proper tones for Tannhauser.  I tried to bring her attention and my own to bear upon the nature of the music, which was written so clearly in order to bring out the necessary accent, that, in my opinion, the music actually spoke for him who interpreted the passage, even if he were only a musical singer and nothing more.  She shook her head, saying that this would be all right in the case of an oratorio.

She now sang Elizabeth’s prayer from the piano score, and asked me if I really thought that this music would answer my intentions if sung by a young and pretty voice without any soul or without that experience of life which alone could give the real expression to the interpretation.  I sighed and said that, in that case, the youthfulness of the voice and of its owner must make up for what was lacking:  at the same time, I asked her as a favour to see what she could do towards making my niece, Johanna, understand her part.  All this, however, did not solve the Tannhauser problem, for any effort at teaching Tichatschek would only have resulted in confusion.  I was therefore obliged to rely entirely upon the energy of his voice, and on the singer’s peculiarly sharp ‘speaking’ tone.