Tag Archive: 0Frederick the Great

A nineteenth-century drawing of Frederick the Great.  But look closer: every line of the picture is actually made up of words. Here’s one with a ruler, to give you an idea of the scale: This is an example of what’s called micrography, ‘the art of writing in microscopic characters’. My next challenge was to try […]

Princess.  Composer.  Book collector.  Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723­–1787), Frederick the Great’s younger sister, was all three.  She studied the keyboard and was an enthusiastic organist, and her musical soirées were attended by artists and intellegentsia from across Europe.  But ‘Amalia’s greatest significance to music lies in her musical library, a collection of incalculable value.  […]