18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 34

[cahn]

And including Emperor Joseph II!

from Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790:

Joseph's alleged comment to Mozart about the Entführung, "Too many notes", has been taken as evidence of his ignorance. But he probably said something like, "Too beautiful for our ears, and monstrous many notes." It is always necessary to bear in mind, when appraising the emperor's remarks, his peculiar brand of humor or sarcasm. He was usually getting at someone. And he did not use the royal "we". The ears in question were those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.

(though not gonna lie, I think it is a LOT of notes)

Comments

Leopold bio

[mildred_of_midgard]

I had commented on the alleged Hungarian-ness last time I linked to this Stabi entry, but I concluded that there was a very good chance that it's a typo/the cataloguer clicked the wrong checkbox. Reasoning:

As far as all my googling can tell, the book was written in German, so I'm not sure why, even if there is a Hungarian translation, your library in Germany would have *only* a Hungarian translation (when all the other works they have by this author they have in German--with the exception of one Hungarian one that also looks like a typo).

The subtitle, Erzherzog v. Oesterreich, Großherzog v. Toskana, König v. Ungarn u. Böhmen, Römischer Kaiser, in the catalog entry is in German. I checked, and it is the custom of the Stabi, like most libraries, to list titles in the language of the volume, not to translate them all into German.

The publisher (Herold), years of publication for the two volumes (1963, 1965), and places of publication (Wien, München) listed are the same as for the German edition I'm finding in googling, and which is the same edition Beales used and heavily implied was in German.

The page numbers (450, 457) for each of the volumes match those of the German edition I'm finding exactly. In my experience, translations don't usually have exactly the same page numbers.

According to WorldCat, the Stabi's copy is the only Hungarian edition in the world.

In conclusion, I think it's worth ordering the first volume and seeing if 1) it's in German, 2) it's any good and worth ordering the second volume. If I'm wrong, you can start learning Hungarian. ;)