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: Karin Feuerstein-Praßer: Sophie Dorothea von Preußen

[felis]

Charlotte pleased FW by not being into dresses, make-up and jewelry the way Wilhelmine was. Which, um. Maybe not while she was still living with Dad

I seemed to remember something about christmas presents from your Stratemann report and yes, there it is, 1730: Princess Charlotte, our Prince of Bevern's bride, received an expensive jewel, some silver kitchen supply, shovels and pliers, and a few pretty things to dress herself up.

Checking my old write-up of their correspondence again, yes, that was in 1746.

Okay, so those were all before the 1747 dinner incident then. (But then again, I had a look at Trier and saw that all these 1746 letters have no further dates and even the year is just Preuss conjecture, so who even knows.)

Re: Karin Feuerstein-Praßer: Sophie Dorothea von Preußen

[selenak]

If Preuss was just guessing, it's hard to say, other than obviously Heinrich didn't yet live in the Potsdam house he moved into in the later 1740s, but still had to live with Fritz, and the Berlin town palace wasn't finished until after the 7 Years War anyway.

Charlotte: well, it was already obvious via her Gundling funeral denial K F-P can't have read Stratemann, but yeah, that passage flies right in the face of the idea of Charlotte the modest Spartan who doesn't want fine dresses or jewelry. Since she lists Charlotte Pangels in her bibliography, I'm assuming that might have been her source. (She also lists Ziebura's AW and Heinrich biographies, which is persumably why she doesn't follow Pangel's "no one but Voltaire ever claimed Fritz was gay, and Heinrich was straight, too!" assertion, but dumps an entire chapter of AW/Sophie von Pannwitz on us despite this having nothing to do with SD.