"Frederick and Bach were a little bit at war, and a little bit in love," Break murmurs, contralto, between sets. "Frederick was all about the new music and Bach was the defining master of the old." Long fingers touch lightly at the keyboard, stroke out a brief lament which somehow harks to the last piece. "And in the public duel between them, Bach was beaten! Never happened before. Man, he was angry. Can you even imagine? The old master, publicly spanked by a young king who was into the contemporary equivalent of boy bands. The best in the world, unable to respond to his opponent’s casual suggestion that he improvise an impossible fugue. This one..." Rippling notes, curiously out of touch with one another, as if two different patterns of sound were somehow fused—and then Break does something and the little tune becomes sprightly, even mocking. "But Bach wasn’t having it. Oh, hell no. And in the ensuing battle of wits and scholarship, the elder statesman of Learned Counterpoint kicked his feudal master’s arse!" Laughter. More rippling music, as if incidental. "While Freddie was whooping it up, Johann Sebastian was brewing a musical potion the likes of which no one had ever seen or even thought of. Working for a total of two weeks on a piece now reckoned to be one of the most complex and remarkable examples of its kind ever devised." Now the music stops, and Break leans away from the instrument and towards the audience, towards—it seems to her—Neith in particular, though she knows that this is the performer’s illusion, that everyone in the room is catching the glint of those eyes, the quirk in the full mouth, and thinking it’s just for them. "Take that, Freddie."