When Princess Pirouette heard her dresser Abigail Hoffenhoff play the harpsichord, she immediately requested that the court’s composer/conductor write a little piece to be performed exclusively for her household. The man who went mysteriously by the single name of Ludwig wrote a short concerto for harpsichord and strings. He called it simply For Abby. On the afternoon of the performance, with all the talk circulation around court of poison, no refreshments were served.
The performance was a complete success; however, shortly after the entertainment, Abigail complained of feeling a little timorous, perhaps even a bit feverish. One courtier helpfully suggested that Monsieur Ludwig had impregnated the sheet music with arsenic or perhaps strychnine. On the basis of this firm evidence, Ludwig was arrested and tossed into the dungeon. It would be a long time before anyone mentioned his name again. The position of court composer/conductor was immediately filled with a younger and much more handsome man named Sir Adam Percival.
