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

Caroline Pichler

[mildred_of_midgard]

A passage that jumped out at me while searching Beales:

Caroline Pichler, whose memoirs I have already quoted more than once, stressed how hostile the regime of Metternich was to the legacy of Joseph. She died in 1843, leaving the manuscript of her memoirs, to which she added this note:

A little book which, even though not always approvingly, tries to describe truthfully the times of Joseph II and the ideas which had currency in that remarkable decade ... can have no hope of being published now in Austria, however harmless it is.

Her memoirs were in fact published in 1844, but only after cuts had been made at the demand of the censor. As we saw, she looked back on the 1780s as a golden age of social and political freedom, literary and musical achievement.

Re: Caroline Pichler

[selenak]

*nods* Yes, I didn't have time to browse through more than the Joseph related parts in my search for the letter showing story, but that's the impression I had of how she saw this era.