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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: Love and arranged marriages
Date: 2022-02-18 03:52 pm (UTC)I will say that Ekaterina mostly sticks with your (1), (2), and (5), and manages not to do (3) and (4), but there's something about the way they paint Catherine as naive/sentimental in the early episodes that kind of grates on me. Like, she asks Johanna, doesn't she love her husband? in one of these episodes, and... idk, even not-very-aware 15-year-old me wouldn't have been as shocked by the answer being "what? are you crazy?" as Catherine clearly seems to be. (The background here is that my parents did not marry for love, they had a quasi-arranged marriage, and sometimes it shows. Now, I think when one of us -- probably my sister, I don't think I would have, and she was and is the sentimental one of the two of us -- asked them a similar question at a similar age, their actual answer was to basically quote Fiddler on the Roof back at us:
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought with him, starved with him
If that's not love, what is?)
I think I would say that Ekaterina seems to cast Catherine as expecting to be loved (not just hoping to be loved), and that's where I wonder if they are taking liberties. I mean... given the weight of (5), maybe not? And she was 15, and I certainly was a lot more idealistic and sentimental at 15 than at 33! But my sense is that the showrunners are going as far as they can in that direction while still staying in the range of possibility, in order to maximize audience sympathy (well, except for me, I guess) with Catherine and make her turning against Peter in the end more sympathetic.