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

Re: An 18th-C RPF pinch hit

[selenak]

I read a couple of German Catherine biographies one of my local libraries had plus Catherine‘s and Poniatowski‘s memoirs (or rather, I had read the later two first). Now our Frederician library has the later two but neither of them have much good to say about either Peter or Brockdorf, and the German language biographies aren‘t useful here. (Plus I didn‘t find them better than servicable, but they were a useful corrective to the memoirs.) Oh, and I read „The Last King of Poland“ about Poniatowski which was in English and very entertaining, though none too accurate on the Prussian side (Partitioning of Poland = Evil Fritzian Long Term Masterplan, Heinrich Who?, also Hanbury Williams is the best source of Frederician Berlin and Fritz).

All of which amounts to: can‘t help, alas!

Re: An 18th-C RPF pinch hit

[cahn]

Oh Catherine and Poniatowski :D Okay, thank you!

...I thought maybe you had watched Ekaterina because I could have sworn we talked about it salon -- and I was right about salon having talked about it, but I found the reference and it was mildred_of_midgard who watched it! Which I would not have guessed, lol!

Re: An 18th-C RPF pinch hit

[mildred_of_midgard]

I "watched" it in my weird, non-linear way. ;) Precisely for Peter III. It's much kinder to him (although also critical) than Massie.