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

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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)

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From:

selenak

Don't have time for more than a quick look, but I think those letters are known to me either from "So lange wir zu zweit sind" or the various biographies (and some of Fritz' from Preuß). Also, yeah, good lord, that's pure 19th century fandom, that is. It would have been fun in its over the topness but for the last remark, which reminded me all over again that most people visiting Bayreuth in the last decades of the 19th century were of a mentality that, well, judge for yourself. Behold:

The Writer, who went to visit her Tomb, came in by chance on a curious congregation of Jews, Buddhists, Infidels and Heretics (oh for her fine hand to describe them!) - few of any of the Faithful - attending the Requiem Mass for Franz Liszt.

cahn, Liszt was only two years older than Wagner and had been a life long encourager, but the other reason why he was buried in Bayreuth - and got a Requiem mass there - is that he was the father of Wagner's second wife Cosima. Liszt, of course, was a Catholic, and as I mentioned in my post about Bayreuth at

rheinsberg, the small church which used to be part of the town palace was given to the small Catholic community in Protestant Bayreuth in the early 19th century (when the line of the Margraves was extinguished) that had come into being not least because Wilhelmine had hired so many Italian and French artists. Given that Bayreuth still was and is mainly Protestant, I'm a bit confused why the presence of "Heretics" should be surprising. By "Infidels" I assume she means anyone not a conventional Christian, which means Fritz, Wilhelmine and Voltaire as Deists certainly would have counted. Buddhists: Wagner himself was massively interested in Buddhism in his last two decades (you can tell in "Parsifal"), and so not a few Wagnerians coming to Bayreuth were, too. As for the singling out of "Jews", yeah, just what it looks like, I fear.

The scans of the actual letters illustrate what both biographers and Fritz in one of his last letters to her meant about her handwriting as dropsy and gout, that twin inheritance from FW, crippled her more and more. BTW, they also, like the scans from earlier letters up at the Wilhelmine Travelling website, illlustrate she signs herself Wilhelmine, not "Wilhelmina", Nancy Goldstone. (Also not "Guillaumette", as one novel has her doing. I mean, I have no doubt Voltaire might have referred to her that way. But she signs "Wilhelmine".

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I think those letters are known to me either from "So lange wir zu zweit sind"

Yeah, figured that book whose title I can never remember was another contender. But it was my bounden duty to get these letters translated and uploaded in case there was something new to us. :)

Jews, Buddhists, Infidels and Heretics: I saw that!! I was planning to quote it, but then it was getting late and I didn't want to be ranting instead of doing the things I needed to do before bed. I figured if I linked you to it, you would pick up on that line, and lo, you did not disappoint. :)

And yeah, getting worked up about heretics in the late nineteenth century was really...something. Anti-Semitism and what I assume is Islamophobia are, alas, to be expected.

But she signs "Wilhelmine".

I was thinking of that, as Google translate relentlessly renders every "Wilhelmine" into a "Wilhelmina" in English. Lol, google.

From:

cahn

Given that Bayreuth still was and is mainly Protestant, I'm a bit confused why the presence of "Heretics" should be surprising. By "Infidels" I assume she means anyone not a conventional Christian, which means Fritz, Wilhelmine and Voltaire as Deists certainly would have counted. Buddhists: Wagner himself was massively interested in Buddhism in his last two decades (you can tell in "Parsifal"), and so not a few Wagnerians coming to Bayreuth were, too. As for the singling out of "Jews", yeah, just what it looks like, I fear.

Oof. But thank you for the context!