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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)
Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-02 06:16 am (UTC)Ch 1:
[Johanna] did not nurse or caress her daughter... One explanation may be that the process of childbirth nearly cost Johanna her life.
You think?! Maybe?? I give you guys credit that whenever a male historian opines about a woman's dastardly motivations, I'm now automatically "...Or maybe it's that she was a WOMAN. In the 18th century." Maybe she had PPD! I'm not doubting she was terrible to Sophie, and I'm not even doubting that Sophie not being a boy had a lot to do with it, but, like, one's first childbirth can be a pretty awful time even without PPD, and with PPD does a huge number on your brain. I didn't have PPD and may have given my kid over to nurses anyway for a while too (though to be fair I took her back) (also to be fair I had an epidural, omg)
[Catherine] realized that people preferred to talk rather than listen and to talk about themselves rather than anything else.
Hee, Dale Carnegie a couple hundred years before his time!
Attempting to find some release, she sat up in bed, placed a hard pillow between her legs, and, astride an imaginary horse, 'galloped until I was quite worn out.'
...I mean, presumably one of you told me that Catherine's memoirs contained a description of her teenage masturbation, but somehow I forgot?? This was a different age, for sure! :P :D
Romance with Uncle George: I always thought this was creepy; Massie seems to think it was just one of those things, unremarkable except that if she'd married him she wouldn't have become Catherine the Great.
Ch 3 (I don't have anything to say about Ch 2)
Frederick had been a dreamy, delicate boy, often beaten by his father, King Frederick William I, for being unmanly. As an adolescent, he wore his hair in long curls hanging down to his waist, and costumed himself in embroidered velvet. He read French writers, wrote French poetry, and performed chamber music on the violin, the harpsichord, and the flute. (The flute was a lifelong passion; he wrote more than a hundred flute sonatas and concerti.) At twenty-five, [Fritz] accepted his royal destiny and took command of an infantry regiment.
...I know this isn't a Fritz biography, but woooooow way to bury the lede on this one, Massie! (There is no mention before or after this passage of foiled escapes, Katte, or executions.)
Also, is Massie implying that Fritz also played the violin and harpsichord, or is he just saying that he performed chamber music with someone else (Heinrich and Amalie?) playing them? (I would usually read such a phrase as the former, but that surprised me -- I assume he means the latter actually?)
I see now the bit where Fritz and France are working together pro-Sophia, though if Massie explains why France cares I have missed it or haven't gotten to it yet. (He explains why Fritz cares, as
Ch 4
okay, Elizaveta is pretty cool
(except for the poor Brunswicks, omg)
Ch 5
I think we can all agree that regardless of what Peter III actually was like, his childhood sucked, poor kid!
But I still don't understand why Elizaveta chose Sophia for his wife. Massie seems to imply that it's because she felt like they were family because her dead fiance was Johanna's brother, but that seems like a pretty shaky reason. He refers briefly to it being a "good political marriage," but I don't really know why yet, and I'm not sure Massie's actually going to tell me. But maybe he will!
Ch 7
Ah -- this incident of Sophia getting pneunomia was what was turned into the poisoning in Ekaterina (and I assume smooshed with the Lestocq affair, which I haven't gotten to yet).
Okay, I will go watch more now (well, tomorrow) and then read more Massie...
Re: Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-02 09:04 am (UTC)Quite. Supposedly she needed 19 days or so to be out of danger. Also, noble mothers who had a loving relationship with their kids later in life still didn't "nurse" them - that's what you employed wetnurses and nurses for.
Teenage masturbation: no, we didn't mention it that I recall. Mind you, those memoirs weren't published for almost a century, and we still don't know how much of the original manuscript survives (it never reaches the point where she ascends the throne).
Romance with Uncle George: I always thought this was creepy; Massie seems to think it was just one of those things, unremarkable except that if she'd married him she wouldn't have become Catherine the Great.
On the one hand: Ferdinand/his niece are an example of a contemporary uncle/niece marriage everyone was fine with. On the other hand: the niece in question was just a few years younger than Ferdinand, and also years older than Sophie was when they married. Also, Uncle George keeping it a secret and telling Sophie not to tell anyone does not sound like okay behaviour even for the 18th century.
...I know this isn't a Fritz biography, but woooooow way to bury the lede on this one, Massie! (There is no mention before or after this passage of foiled escapes, Katte, or executions.)
LOL, omg, yes. Not to mention "locks down to his waist"? FW would have cut them off long before that. This reminds me of Nancy Goldstone saying his crime was to wear them long at all. As Mildred said at the time: all Prussian soldiers, including fW, wore their hair long - at shoulder length, usually - and wore it in a tail. Teenage rebel Fritz rebelled by wearing a French style Haarbeutel instead, which is what Dad objected to. Presumably neither Goldstone nor Massie have the patience to explain this to their readers and just count on contemporaries associating male long hair with teenage rebellion, never mind that in the 18th century, it wasn't. (Teenage FW, btw, rebelled by not wanting to wear a periwig (the gigantic long Louis XIV type wig) and preferring his own hair, as mentioned in a letter to Grandma, though he weas fine with the shorter later 18th century types of wig.
is Massie implying that Fritz also played the violin and harpsichord, or is he just saying that he performed chamber music with someone else (Heinrich and Amalie?) playing them? (I would usually read such a phrase as the former, but that surprised me -- I assume he means the latter actually?
I think it's ill phrased and he meant the later, and remember, Heinrich and Amalie were way too young to play music with young crown prince Fritz - Heinrich was four when Fritz made his escape attempt. (Though kid!Amalie famously played on the harpsichord even as a toddler, as a complaining Ulrike told us.) But given few pieces at the time were written just for flute and rather had other instruments involved, too, young Fritz would have performed with other musicians (including Wilhelmine).
But I still don't understand why Elizaveta chose Sophia for his wife. Massie seems to imply that it's because she felt like they were family because her dead fiance was Johanna's brother, but that seems like a pretty shaky reason. He refers briefly to it being a "good political marriage," but I don't really know why yet
Witout having read Massie, here are my thoughts on this:
1.) A Russian marriage for Peter would automatically elevate any Russian noble family he marries into beyond all the others and cause long term problems that way. It would create a de facto new branch of the royal/imperial family. Elizaveta doesn't need that.
2.) I haven't checked who was still available among princesses in the early 1740s, but going just by memory, the highest ranking matches would have been either one of Louis XV's daughters, one of G2's daughters or Amalie (the sole single Fritz sister at this point in time after Ulrike married Peter's uncle and became Swedish Crown Princess). MT's kids are still way too young, and because the Romanovs hinge on Peter's life (unless you want to reinstate the poor banished Brunswicks), Elizaveta can't marry Peter to a child bride anyway. She needs someone of childbearing age who will remain of child bearing age as long as possible to max the chances of procreation. However, the downside of a truly highborn princess (of France, of England, possibly even of Prussia) is that she'll feel she's outranking Elizaveta. Who was largely seen as Peter the Great's bastard child, not a legitimate princess, for her first two decades, which is why the French refused to consider her as a bride for Louis XV when Peter the Great suggested it. Even if they grudgingly now acknowledge Elizaveta as legitimate, much of Europe (and some of Russian nobility) sees her still as the daughter of a washerwoman/serf turned concubine. Letting your heir marry a princess who outranks you in most people's eyes is also asking for trouble.
3.) Don't forget, Elizaveta got to the throne via a coup. If Peter's father-in-law is a super powerful monarch, what's stopping him from deciding his aunt has reigned long enough and push her off the throne with father-in-law's troups?
4.) On the other hand, the marriage should bring in a useful alliance.
=> Someone like Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst is ideal. She'll bring in a connection to up and coming power Prussia without being actually a Hohenzollern. She's a princess of the blood, but of a minor family, and one without power of their own, so there is no danger she'll outrank Elizaveta in anyone's eyes. She's 14, so capable of having children for the maximum amount of time. It only stands to be checked whether she comes across as obedient and willing to do as she's told.
Re: Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-03 06:06 am (UTC)Yeah, Massie kinda... did not mention that part. I'm getting the distinct impression that Massie kind of leaves out a lot :P (On the other hand I'm giving him points for mentioning Sophie teenage masturbation passage, lol!)
Your thoughts make so much sense! Massie did hint at some of this -- he mentions the French rejecting the idea of Elizaveta as Louis XV's bride, for instance -- but not enough for me to make the connections, and your putting it all together like this is very helpful, thank you!
Re: Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-03 05:22 pm (UTC)Ha! But all modern biographers that I've read mention this. :P I certainly wasn't reading her memoirs when I was a teenager, and I remembered it vividly.
Re: Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-02 11:31 pm (UTC)This is why I always say Massie is only of middling accuracy! What he can do is A+ readability.
...I mean, presumably one of you told me that Catherine's memoirs contained a description of her teenage masturbation, but somehow I forgot?? This was a different age, for sure! :P :D
I don't think we did, but funnily enough, it's one of the things that stuck with me 20 years after last reading about her. Did I remember who on earth Potemkin was? No. Did I remember her teenage masturbation? I sure did! :P
Romance with Uncle George: I always thought this was creepy; Massie seems to think it was just one of those things, unremarkable except that if she'd married him she wouldn't have become Catherine the Great.
Ugh, yes, I was turned off by his presentation of it as a charming little love affair in which she seduced him. Um. MASSIE NO.
Also, is Massie implying that Fritz also played the violin and harpsichord
I don't have time to check, but I've definitely read (maybe in Asprey) that young!Fritz was trained on a few instruments before settling on the flute as his One True Passion. I do remember an instrument with a keyboard being one of them, which might be the harpsichord. This makes sense to me, both in terms of baroque education and in terms of--don't people often try out more than one instrument before finding the one they love? (I mean, assuming money's not the object, which it wouldn't have been in Fritz's case, only FW-free time.)
Anyway, for once, I don't think Massie made this one up.
ETA: MacDonogh quotes Franz Benda saying Fritz "graciously accompanied me himself on the piano. With that I entered his service."
Benda was a Europe-famous violinist whom Fritz acquired in 1734 and who stayed with him until his death in 1786. So if he thinks Fritz has at least basic competency on the piano, he's probably not confusing him with someone else from long ago!
Ah, yes, MacDonogh, not Asprey, is the one who says, "Pesne was called in to give the child drawing lessons, and he was allowed to start learning the piano, violin, and flute at five." No citation this time. But I'm willing to believe Fritz at least tried his hand on them at Ruppin and Rheinsberg, even if the flute was his one true love.
Of course, as the next paragraph points out, by the time Fritz was 7, FW was leaving him very little time for anything outside of FW-approved lessons. Or as MacDonogh puts it, "Two years later, Frederick's study plan makes very sad reading indeed." :(
Ah -- this incident of Sophia getting pneunomia was what was turned into the poisoning in Ekaterina (and I assume smooshed with the Lestocq affair, which I haven't gotten to yet).
Yes, this. This is why I wanted you to read Massie, so I don't have to explain!
On that note, alas, I will have to leave you hanging without an explanation of French foreign policy in the mid-1740s. Maybe this weekend!
Re: Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-03 06:11 am (UTC)young!Fritz was trained on a few instruments before settling on the flute as his One True Passion.
Yeah, makes sense to me. Although I guess I was thinking that if FW was so set against his being into music, I wasn't quite sure how he managed to train on several of them -- but maybe that was SD's influence?
Re: Catherine the Great (Massie) - Ch 1-7
Date: 2022-02-03 05:21 pm (UTC)Same, but I'm pretty sure the biography I read was kind enough to describe it as "pent-up sexual energy" or some such.
Yeah, makes sense to me. Although I guess I was thinking that if FW was so set against his being into music, I wasn't quite sure how he managed to train on several of them -- but maybe that was SD's influence?
I originally wondered about that too, but the timing makes sense to me. Boys were kept in the care of the women (mother and governess(es)) until they were seven. Now, FW certainly had opinions on how he wanted Fritz raised, and SD was certainly making him practice firing cannons and shooting pistols and what-not, but SD and Madame de Roucoulles would have had more elbow room until Fritz was seven, or such is my understanding.
Starting at age 7, FW was micromanaging Fritz's schedule such that he had only 7 minutes for breakfast (part of why MacDonogh says it's such sad reading), and no time for violins, pianos, or flutes. Then at 16/17, he's having to sneak in lessons with Quantz. Then it makes perfect sense to me that in his twenties, when he had some free time again, he started giving all his old instruments another chance. Granted I don't have a primary source, but MacDonogh is at least claiming to be quoting a primary source that isn't Thiebault, but someone who was actually there and would have been qualified to know.