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cahnAnd 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)
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)
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 1
Date: 2022-01-31 02:42 am (UTC)At a guess, the reason why Ekaterina is using „Friederike“ instead is because she will discard that name and make her Russian loyalties clear, and it sounds like Friedrich, who is the bad guy. The show also seems not too bothered by historical accuracy when establishing his bad guyness from the start if they let him be against the marriage instead of for it. The reason why rl Fritz was for it was pretty obvious - he wanted to establish as many pro Prussia people at the court as possible, and certainly wanted them around the heir, because having someone friendly to your cause in the gigantic realm next door (renember, East Prussia and Russia shared borders) makes strategic sense even for more peaceful minded people than Fritz. Sophie was the daughter of one of his generals and while Anhalt-Zerbst was nominally independent, it was a de facto Prussia client state.
The reason why she qualified as marriage potential for a future Czar at all was because ever since Peter the Great married the ill fated Alexeji to a German princess as part of his Westernize-Russia-Policy, the Romanows had been intermarried with Germans, which is how future Peter III came into being (the product of a daughter of Peter the Great‘s and a Holstein prince). As Sophie‘s mother was in fact a Holstein princess, this made Sophie and future Peter III cousins (a plus for royalty), and another of her mother Johanna‘s brothers had been elected as future King of Sweden (in future Peter III‘s place, no less), so by virtue of this maternal Holstein connection, Sophie qualified in terms of bloodline, even if she didn‘t have much of a dowry. Oh, and since Sophie’s mother Johanna had produced a good number of kids - even if not that many survived - she could be said to come from a fertile family. But Elizaveta wanted her to present herself in Russia first before giving her ultimate blessing to the marriage, which is why 14 years old Sophie and her mother made the trip WITHOUT a guarantee it would result in a marriage. This was risky and not something a Princess of a ruling house would have agreed to (or rather her parents/guardians wouldn‘t have agreed to it), because there inherent humiliation of being sent back like a pair of ill fitting slippers was gigantic. It could have nixed any future chance of marriage for Sophie. But otoh the chance of her becoming Empress of Russia was too good to pass for her super ambitious mother who pushed to agree to those terms.
Re: eating together - actually, as long as they weren‘t married yet, them being alone together on occasions other than a walk where people could see them would have been highly improper. They would have been chaperoned during dinners, certainly. Of course, customs differed from country to country and not everyone was FW, but remember how FW was insistent in his instructions to AW‘s teacher - as he had been to Fritz‘ teachers/companions - that the princes weren‘t to be alone for a minute, including at night in the bedroom, but always supervised? For an heir to the throne, that was definitely usual more often than not, though of course how strictly these instructions were followed was another matter. And we‘re not even counting the servants who also are always present. Adult post 7 Years War Fritz is considered a freak for NOT undressing himself in front of his servants, if you‘ll recall.
All this being said, in a show that‘s not too fuzzy about accuracy it‘s more likely they keep Brockdorff present to signal to the audience how close he and Peter are than adhering to the fact a top level royal is literally NEVER alone.
ETA: If you want to refresh your memory on what rl Catherine wrote about her youth and enounters with the Hohenzollern before going to Russia, it‘s this Rheinsberg entry: https://rheinsberg.dreamwidth.org/19756.html
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 1
Date: 2022-01-31 03:12 am (UTC)Ekaterina 2014: ep 2
Date: 2022-01-31 06:41 am (UTC)I still haven't quite figured out why Elizaveta likes this marriage. I mean, it was probably in Ep 1 and I missed it.
Show!Friederike and Show!Peter are both getting on my nerves. Peter because, well, Peter (A_S has a lot of arguments that he was more like Joseph or maybe Schiller Don Carlos than he was like RL Don Carlos, but Show!Peter is more like...hmm, a Verdi Don Carlos tenor who's read about RL Don Carlos) and Friederike because she seems to be all into these dreams of love, which just doesn't seem at all in keeping with what I know about RL Catherine.
ETA: Wait! That was before I finished the episode! At the end, Friederike gives Peter an awesome present and he says if it were only not for my aunt, we could be happy. Then Elizaveta comes in and betroths them and we see exactly what he means -- he just goes all cold and miserable, and you can see that if she hadn't been picked for him that he could have come to love her, and now he can't. Wow, very well done by all three actors.
Also, I immediately recognized those screenshots that Mildred took of that poor exiled family. :((((((
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 2
Date: 2022-01-31 09:09 am (UTC)I really blame Putin for poisoning plots becoming so popular in Russia. Okay, more seriously, I guess they wanted some lethal suspense, which "will our heroine be sent back to Prussia or will she marry Peter?" in the first episode does have. But really, the French wanting to poison future Catherine makes as little sense as Fritz wanting to. (I'm not sure what the French attitude towards Russia in the mid 1740s was, when Fritz was indeed far from old and in his early 30s, but I don't recall any direct conflicts of interest. And they didn't have an alternative match to offer. Mildred?)
Incidentally, I suspect they used an older actor for Fritz so they could use the same one throughout the tv series, but no, he really wasn't old at that point. He was in his early 30s when Sophie left for Russia.
Friederike because she seems to be all into these dreams of love, which just doesn't seem at all in keeping with what I know about RL Catherine.
To be fair: Catherine as a teenager was undoubtedly not a Future Ruler Always Keeping Her Cool. And she did want to be loved - don't we all? Not to mention that because as a girl she'd heard often enough she was unattractive, especially from her mother, she wasn't immune to the fact once puberty set in she was starting to be noticed by men, including by Uncle Georg Wilhelm, and that was balm on that old wound. However, in terms of her marriage, her main expectations/hopes were a) being a crowned consort in one of the largest realms of the planet, and b) just that. She hadn't grown up as a hopeless naive until then. Her parents were getting along reasonably well, but it wasn't a love match. Countess Bentick, her heroine as a teenager, famously scandalized the world as a divorced woman. The royal couples she'd seen and heard about as a child and teenager were FW/SD and Fritz/EC, neither of whom were an advertisement of marital royal harmony. So while rl Sophie probably hoped she and Peter would get along well, and that he'd care for her (unlike Fritz for EC), nothing I've read either in biographies or in her memoirs makes me believe she would have wanted that more than becoming Tsarina.
Mind you: we do have a few 18th century examples of young royals going into a marriage expecting love. Certainly G2 did with Caroline (since he fell for her and remained fallen for the rest of his life); the letters between Sophie of Hannover and her grandkids show that FW was most upset at the thought SD might not love him and SD had to convince him that she did; Joseph was convinced Isabella loved him; and MT famously managed to marry the man she loved and whom she certainly had reason to believe loved her. But none of these marriages came to be without the older generation arranging and supporting them (not even MT/FS - the whole reason why FS had spent years at the Austrian court growing up was because he was a potential marriage candidate, not the only one, sure, but definitely a possiblity from the get go), and the only comparable case to young Sophie, Caroline, - comparable because neither of them was a first rank princess or had much of a dowry, though they were related by blood to ruling houses - still never gave the impression that romantic love was her primary expectation from marriage with future G2. It's telling that the only female royal expecting to be loved in her marriage was the one with the most social power, MT, whereas the other royals expecting love were the men.
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 2
Date: 2022-02-03 03:03 am (UTC)She famously wrote to Potemkin that she had taken lovers because she "couldn't bear to be without love for an hour." The quote that Massie gives from her memoirs about Peter reads to me like she was hoping for love from her future husband and disappointed she didn't get it, but realistic (and proud) enough to protect herself from falling in love and showing that she had hoped for more.
It's telling that the only female royal expecting to be loved in her marriage was the one with the most social power, MT, whereas the other royals expecting love were the men.
What about Wilhelmine? When SD was going on about how great Frederick of Wales was, she wrote in her memoirs:
A husband such as she described the prince her nephew, would have suited her. But the principle which I had adopted respecting marriage, differed much from her’s. I maintained, that a happy union ought to be founded upon mutual esteem and regard. I would have chosen reciprocal affection as its basis, and that my complaisances and attentions should flow from this source. Nothing appears difficult to us for those we love: but can there possibly be love without any return? True affection suffers no division. A prince who has mistresses, grows attached to them; in proportion as his love increases, his affection diminishes for her who ought to be its legitimate object. What esteem, what regard, can be entertained for a man who suffers himself to be governed, and neglects his affairs and his country, to abandon himself to dissolute pleasures? I wished for a real friend, to whom I might give my confidence and my heart; towards whom I could feel both esteem and inclination; who might insure my felicity; and whom I might render happy. I foresaw that the prince of Wales would not suit me, as he did not possess the qualities which I required.
Wilhelmine's marriage hopes and expectations
Date: 2022-02-03 08:07 am (UTC)The problem here is that Wilhelmine is writing this retrospectively and in 1739 at the earliest, i.e. well after being given hell by Mom for eight months for having married Dad's candidate after all. And "I at least have a husband who loves and honors me!" was a counter argument she used to herself, if not SD, back then. (As Uwe Oster in his Wilhelmine biography puts it, that's one reason why Wilhelmine kept the BayreuthFriedrich/Female Marwitz affair secret not just from Fritz but from everyone else in her family as long as she did. And came clean to AW about it before telling Fritz.) So she may have felt this way as a girl, or she might not but retrospectively projects this (doesn't have to be deliberate), because let's face it, Wilhelmine's treatment from the Brits was one long humiliation conga, including getting presented with her bare upper body so the Hannover ladies could see she's not humpbacked, being drilled in English history and English language and everything from early childhood onwards, and then even before FW gave his final no, it was very clear that GB might still be interested in getting Fritz for Amalia/Emily, but no one was eager for Wilhelmine even when FW at one point offered her alone. From Wilhelmine's pov, she was never good enough for the Hannover relations, despite all the work and tears and pain throughout her adolescence. And for someone who tries to keep a sense of self worth despite all the emotional and literal blows... well, it would make sense if she told herself "hah, I didn't even want the guy anyway! I could see how bad a husband he'd be, even then!"
My other reason for assuming this is that as far as I recall from the Hervey bio and the essay and Hervey's memoirs, Fritz of Wales' reputation for being a skirt chaser is more a thing that developed in Britain, especially via the scandal of him taking up with Hervey's mistress. Which puts it in the early 1730s, well after Wilhelmine was still a viable candidate for Mrs. Wales. I have no doubt that Wilhelmine, in the early 30s, in Bayreuth with a husband who did show her affection and respect and hearing gossip from abroad thought, wow, maybe Bayreuth is a dump but did I ever get the better guy! Especially if the story of Fritz of Wales taking his wife on a one hour carriage drive when she was in her labors so she could give birth away from his parents reached her. But with the caveat that English envoys aren't likely to report this, I don't recall anything written pre 1730 giving the impression that Wilhelmine wasn't 100% on board with the English marriage project.
Again: she might have been, and hidden it because she didn't want to let Mom down. After all, we don't have any of the letters between her and Fritz before Küstrin, and she does mention in her memoirs she was so eager to see them burned not just for what they said about Dad but what they said about Mom. But I would point out that the likelihood of memoirs-writing Wilhelmine projecting backwards is just as high, if not higher.
Re: Wilhelmine's marriage hopes and expectations
Date: 2022-02-04 10:13 pm (UTC)There was also Fritz telling her in 1731 to follow the considerations of her heart, which is the best guide in such matters, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean romantic love. It could mean that if she wants to be queen of England more than anything, she should hold out for that rather than trying to free him via an unwanted marriage.
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 2
Date: 2022-02-03 05:45 am (UTC)It's telling that the only female royal expecting to be loved in her marriage was the one with the most social power, MT, whereas the other royals expecting love were the men.
Ha, yeah, I was thinking, hmm, these are all guys :P Well, except for MT, like you say.