Stayed again at Horgans´ for a few days. Spent time in playing the pianola, reading on the piano and enjoying the ‘Forerunner’. The pianola may be a wonderful invention, but no matter how much it may be improved it will always be mechanical and lifeless. Played a Bach fugue on it and it was hopeless: Jazz suits it best showing thereby that heart is not wanted for jazz. Read the old ‘Kinderszenen’ [Schumann’s ‘Scenes from Childhood’ for piano] I loved so much, I suppose six years ago now. Old memories! Heard Sir Henry Wood broadcasting a promenade concert, chiefly Wagner. It was very fine. I heard one of the concerts when I was in London about 1922.
Went home on Thurs and shook off feeling of disquiet and vagrancy by working hard. Went after to Murphys´ for tennis and a really nice time, having good exercise. There is much refinement about that family, while they are all merry and even modern at the same time.
Mám went off this morning for London via Dublin. She will stay with Uncle Hans ((Uncle Hans: Conrad Anton Swertz (1884-1949). He studied medicine in UCC, graduating in 1907; then worked for five years in Trinidad. When the first world war began in 1914, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He suffered gas poisoning during the war but survived. He married in 1919 and practised from then on in London.)) and on Tues. will play at the audition preliminary to getting a broadcasting engagement. But she is always so nervous, one never knows what will happen, though she always pulls through all the same in fine style.
Páp played me a lot of his works. Though I cannot understand many, there are some which I do understand and find really wonderful. ‘An die Nacht’ seems to me a masterpiece. ((‘An die Nacht’, written in March 1910, was one of the three songs published by Augener in 1929. It was inspired by a painting of the Fleischmanns` friend Richard Pfeiffer and sent to Tilly Fleischmann for her name-day when she was in Munich awaiting the birth of her child.)) I cannot weary of its beauty.
Then he told me the history of the ‘Mystery Plays’, which he wrote at the age of 25. They were an extraordinary success. Only artists took part in them, and all Munich, together with people from far and wide came to hear them. For three years he gave them, and was then offered by a Berlin firm their production and publication. But he wouldn’t have it, and unfortunately left for Ireland. That was the end, but will, please God, not be the end.
Went to Betty and had fairly good evening. But there is nothing in common between us. I must made a breach and drift slowly apart.
