Exner continues to be informative, but every now and then keeps including little mistakes which make me hickup. She seems to think Fredersdorf was actually one of the students in Frankfurt an der Oder, and got his musical training at college there. (As opposed to Dad the town piper.) And then she observes that Fritz' Rheinsberg capella is lacking an oboist and that "it is every unlikely that either Frederick himself or Fredersdorf were trained in playing the oboe".
Otoh, her pointing out that unlike Fritz' pre 1740 friends, his Rheinsberg musicians, as much as he'd occasionally bitch about them being an unruly lot in letters to Wilhelmine, survived the transition to the King Fritz era completely is very true. But no sooner do I nod that there's a sentence like her statement that Fritz, unlike many other kings, "did not give cabinet jobs to his drinking and hunting companions". Considering she keeps quoting from Thomas Carlyle and he's bound to have included that factoid in his many volumed biography, you'd think she knew that Fritz didn't have hunting companions. ;) (Also, there's the perfect Fritz quote expressing the same basic idea ready - his explanation as to why he doesn't want to talk politics with Voltaire: "That would be like drinking tea with one's mistress."
Cutting of heads: I hear you, and agree that it's the fraternal aspect and their shared FW history that makes it special. And, I might add, the following year. There's a reason why so many biographies tend to flash forward from Bautzen (casheering) to Oranienburg (AW dying) a year later, and don't mention the long year in between. Fritz had been pissed off at Schmettau, too, but Schmettau didn't get "it's your fault if we lose this war and all die!" and "the only thing you're fit to command is a seraglio" type of letters.
Can you imagine what FW would have said if Fritz had given Fredersdorf something like Zernikow in his life time? *head explodes*
No. What I also can't imagine is 1730s Fritz being stupid enough to do it. :P
LOL, agreed. Also, I dimly seem to recall Fritz didn't even own Zernikow until 1737 - he bought it then, it wasn't crown property but privately owned by a Colonel something or the other.
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Re: Music diss
Date: 2021-03-20 02:30 pm (UTC)Otoh, her pointing out that unlike Fritz' pre 1740 friends, his Rheinsberg musicians, as much as he'd occasionally bitch about them being an unruly lot in letters to Wilhelmine, survived the transition to the King Fritz era completely is very true. But no sooner do I nod that there's a sentence like her statement that Fritz, unlike many other kings, "did not give cabinet jobs to his drinking and hunting companions". Considering she keeps quoting from Thomas Carlyle and he's bound to have included that factoid in his many volumed biography, you'd think she knew that Fritz didn't have hunting companions. ;) (Also, there's the perfect Fritz quote expressing the same basic idea ready - his explanation as to why he doesn't want to talk politics with Voltaire: "That would be like drinking tea with one's mistress."
Cutting of heads: I hear you, and agree that it's the fraternal aspect and their shared FW history that makes it special. And, I might add, the following year. There's a reason why so many biographies tend to flash forward from Bautzen (casheering) to Oranienburg (AW dying) a year later, and don't mention the long year in between. Fritz had been pissed off at Schmettau, too, but Schmettau didn't get "it's your fault if we lose this war and all die!" and "the only thing you're fit to command is a seraglio" type of letters.
Can you imagine what FW would have said if Fritz had given Fredersdorf something like Zernikow in his life time? *head explodes*
No. What I also can't imagine is 1730s Fritz being stupid enough to do it. :P
LOL, agreed. Also, I dimly seem to recall Fritz didn't even own Zernikow until 1737 - he bought it then, it wasn't crown property but privately owned by a Colonel something or the other.