January 30
To the Queen’s Hall and heard Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies.
Before the concert began I was in a fever. I kept on saying to myself, “I am going to hear the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies.” I regarded myself with the most ridiculous self-adulation—I smoothed and purred over myself—a great contented Tabby cat—and all because I was so splendidly fortunate as to be about to hear Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies.
It certainly upset me a little to find there were so many other people who were singularly fortunate as well, and it upset me still more to find some of them knitting and some reading newspapers as if they waited for sausage and mashed.
How I gloried in the Seventh! I can’t believe there was anyone present who gloried in it as I did! To be processing majestically up the steps of a great, an unimaginable palace (in the “Staircase” introduction), led by Sir Henry, is to have had at least a crowded ten minutes of glorious life—a suspicion crossed the mind at one time “Good Heavens, they’re going to knight me.” I cannot say if that were their intentions. But I escaped however. …
I love the way in which a beautiful melody flits around the Orchestra and its various components like a beautiful bird.