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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)
Ekaterina 2014: ep 3; Massie 8-9
Date: 2022-02-03 06:20 am (UTC)Peter and Catherine then get married and dance. (Also, I think, ahead of schedule; Massie says that Peter gets smallpox first, which looks like it's going to be next episode (I assume for maximum angst).) Peter is a reasonable dancer, which Massie had argued against. I don't care what the historical record is, if people are dancing on TV and I'm watching them, I want them to be good dancers (also I don't like people getting humiliated by things like that), so I was relieved by this.
Saltykov also comes off as kind of a nerd about building, which is adorable.
(Also, forgot to mention before but in ep 2 Fritz is playing Bach on the flute, which I thought was interesting.)
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 3; Massie 8-9
Date: 2022-02-03 09:49 am (UTC)Re: scheming Johanna, as far as I recall she did write letters, and there‘s an irony in store here: when the 7 Years War started, Fritz accused her of scheming with the French against him and used that as an excuse of letting his troups occupy her principality (his troups never left). She was regent as her son, Catherine‘s brother, was a mostly absent prince who didn‘t come back post war, either. (He was one of the German princes who sold entire regiments of their people to the Brits in the American war of Independence later to finance their life style.) You may or may not recall that Catherine‘s brother was the guy married to Mina’s sister and managed to be an even worse husband than Fritz, AW and Heinrich. How so? Because he and his mother, i.e. Johanna, according to Lehndorff were abusive to the poor woman to the point of being blamed for her death.
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 3; Massie 8-9
Date: 2022-02-11 05:33 am (UTC)Wow, I vaguely remember Mina's sister having a terrible marriage but I had apparently totally forgotten it was actually Johanna who was blamed for her death. Omg.
Re: Ekaterina 2014: ep 3; Massie 8-9
Date: 2022-02-11 07:40 am (UTC)To his teacher Duhan, I guess? And to Frederdsorf. And Suhm. Also to the mother whose favourite son he was. But in terms of political gratitude, which is something else again, yeah, no. (As Mildred said, Suhm was not going to get a political job.)