"I have," she said. "Your Lady Macbeth scarcely leaves me a restful minute. I have thought that it will be very difficult to show the weak, feminine side of the part in music, without a certain external help."
"What do you mean by this?" I asked.
"I mean some lyrical detail which in my opinion must be added. Could the words
'I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.'
could these words not be the excuse for a sort of lullaby? And then in the scene where she walks in her sleep; as we have cancelled all Macduff, the Lady can no more say: 'The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?' But I think the lullaby could be repeated in her dream. It would be, when it comes first, only a remembrance, and when it comes for the second time only the dream-memory of that remembrance. It would have to be very mysterious and so in keeping with the general character of the whole drama."
Mitzi's idea may give you a notion of her artistic instinct. Perhaps I ought not to call it artistic, but theatrical or operatic. For, although the idea was excellent and proved so, its staginess, its artificiality cannot be denied.
Anyhow, I was then enthusiastic about it. I went to Hammer, who advised as accompaniment for this not yet composed lullaby a succession of major thirds in the lowest notes of the flutes; a suggestion which I applied, but not without the greatest difficulty, in the first version of that little piece, while when it came back in the dream scene I replaced the flutes by muted violins. I remember this detail, because when Lady Macbeth was performed, Hammer came greatly excited after the first act to me protesting that his advice had been bad, and the highest notes of the bassoons would have been better than the lowest of the flutes, whereupon I told him in my excusable excitement that I did not care, or, to employ the Austrian expression, and that it was all "sausage to me."
Indulgent reader, do not be cross with me because I speak of these professional details. Having shown you sufficiently that I am no more a musician, I may be allowed to remember that once upon a time I was one.
I ran to Bischoff. And so pleased was he with Mitzi's suggestion that he wrote there and then the words of that lullaby. In the afternoon I worked with Mr. Doblana on the score of his Aladdin, which was advancing rapidly and in my judgment becoming a distinctly charming ballet.