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: Ekaterina and Massie: up to Peter III's death

[cahn]

Well -- I thought Ekaterina was pretty good, actually; I think I'm doing it a disservice by only telling you guys all the stuff that I was all ?? about. (And even all of that makes dramatic sense and I can see why they wanted to do it that way, I just maybe didn't like it or found it a bit over-the-top.) In terms of providing a reasonable visual facsimile of the history, and getting me to feel for the characters and understand at least somewhat why they did the things they did, I thought it worked quite well, and I did feel like they understood the history even when they were diverging from it.

as it was him being miffed she was stealing his thunder as the enlightened despot Europe was half appalled, half fascinated by, and „woman in over her head with the men behind her calling the shots“ suited him better as an explanation.

LOL! That sounds very Fritz.

Ah, thanks for reminding me of the Mitchell quote. Andrew Mitchell is so great <3