Marie Antoinette Eats Cake, parts 677 - 680

677. Maria Teresa was curious about the Bach fugues that the ten year old Mozart person was able to play so she asked the director of her music library to bring her a copy of some of Bach's keyboard works. The music library director brought her a work titled Anna Magdelana Bach's lesson book, and she opened it to the first page. What she saw was simple minuet that even she could play, and she was not an accomplished player.

678. "See here", she said to the librarian who was standing next to the music tutor, "This is just another example of a calf with three heads. So what if Mozart can play this simple garbage, anyone with half a brain could play it. "But Most Revered Holy Imperial Madame, I humbly beg you to consider that you don't know stonmitz about this." (Stonmitz was a peasant expression of the time meaning goat excrement.)

679. It was very dangerous to contradict the Empress, especially about the subject of music, but the tutor made so bold as to correct her. "There are some Bach Fugues that are much more complicated than these, look at this for example," and he unfolded a score of a more complicated work. What the Empress saw was a score that looked like an aunt hill of swarming black notes. "What the stonmitz is this?"  she muttered.

680. The Empress handed the Bach scores to the music tutor and demanded that he teach little Marie to master at least some of  the easier pieces in a few weeks in time to be ready for the visit of Mozart to the court which was scheduled for the end of the month. The Empress was confident that her royal daughter would have no difficult impressing everyone with her abilities, but the music tutor had his doubts.