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: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - I

[selenak]

LOL, yes, if these kind of events had happened in Leopold‘s life, I‘d feel warmer towards him, too. I mean, there‘s always the possibility he did and we just haven‘t come across them yet, but so far, he just doesn‘t seem to be the type. There‘s also this: Joseph, in the reverse position, would have been there for Leopold when he died. I mean, maybe he‘d also been smart and calculating enough to refuse a co regency in order to be able to make a fresh start, but he would have been there during the death of his brother. How do we know? Because Joseph was there for both his parents and his first wife and daughter, no matter how hard this was for him in the later two‘s case. And while a part of him must have been relieved when MT died because now he was finally able to govern exactly how he wanted, another part of him missed her and grieved for her, see his writing to Leopold about catching himself at wanting to send her a package, or wanting to visit her. Going by what I‘ve read so far, there is no testimony of such torn feelings on Leopold‘s part. There‘s no glitch in his negativity. He resented MT for not appreciating him enough, wrote she was senile in her last years - something Joseph, no matter how frustrated he got with her, never would have said, and he was in a far better position to judge her mental capacity - , and showed no sign of missing her once she was gone. He resented Joseph and remained consistent about this in the few years he survived him. There‘s nothing like Heinrich‘s inability to keep away from Fritz for good (i.e. his resumibng their letters because he was bored to tears after a two years break), let alone the „I‘m just going to pretend the last twelve years didn‘t happen“. There are no inner contradictions which is what makes people really interesting to me. I‘m as fond of competent people as the next fannish person, but they have to give me something else, too, for me to get hooked.

Thinking of contemporaries who were mostly negative about others and whom I still feel differently about: well, Hervey‘s memoirs are also a hilarious „everyone sucks!“ bitchfest (I mean, they suck in different degrees, Caroline and one of her daughters less than others, and he has some impressive things to report about her, but „she lived for power“ wasn‘t meant as a compliment). But only is Hervey a far better writer than Leopold (judging by the excerpts quoted in biographies), able to be witty in his badmouthing which Leopold is not, Hervey also has his share of positive emotions, for love-of-his-life Stephen and for Algarotti, among others.

MT and her children: Leopold‘s biographer goes with the general characterisation that FS was the fun, easy-going parent (up to a point: see FS pushing Joseph just as much to remarry as MT did), and MT was the aweinspiring disciplinary one whom they also were somewhat afraid of. This is probably partly caused by their gender atypical social roles, but also the expression of their respective natures. Now corresponding with your kid‘s teachers about your kid and instructing them were what many a royal parent did - hence us knowing all about FW wanting to be the fun parent, with SD as the disciplinary parent, and utterly failing at achieving this, for example - , but because of who she was, her various assessments are better preserved than most.