Mozart Producer's Musician Gacha
July 25, 1779, Versailles Palace banquet hall.
I held a banquet on the day of the court artists' public audition.
♪♬♪♬♬
I could have judged them just by their songs or paintings like some modern audition show, but that would've been too twenty-first-century thinking. In the eighteenth century, hosting a banquet and a public concert was the national rule.
Whoa, but why is this wallpaper color so vivid? It's a fresh green, like it was plucked straight from the forest.
"A remarkable color."
"Haha, Your Majesty. It's a color I invented. I'm a humble chemist from Sweden—Carl Wilhelm Scheele. A pleasure to meet you."
Scheele, huh. First time hearing that name. Probably just your average chemist of this era.
"Ah, a chemist. Chemistry is the future of this nation. Are you an academy student?"
"Yes. A chemistry student at the Academy of Sciences."
Impressive that a student has a patented invention. Then again, if you picked the top countries on Earth right now, first place goes to the Qing Dynasty for sheer size and population, second to France. With tech factored in, France is probably the real number one. Europe's other nations are going to suffer from brain drain.
♪♪♬
"I've never seen such a vivid green in my life."
It really was the first time. I doubt even modern greens could match it. It wasn't real—it popped like CG, sparkling on its own.
"What materials did you use? Emerald? Malachite? Or maybe copper oxide?"
"Haha... trade secret."
Fair enough. I'm no science guy anyway. Even if he gave me the formula, I wouldn't understand. My last chemistry lesson was freshman year high school: arrow directions and reading compounds. Oxidation and catalysts were the end of my knowledge.
Still, pretending to know nothing undermines authority, so I faked a bit of expertise.
♪♬♬♪♬♪♪
"Well, if I guessed it right on the spot like that, chemists wouldn't have jobs anymore."
"An honor."
And so, I enjoyed the banquet, savoring the songs.
Nothing had caught my ear yet. As a royal audition, they were decent enough. But something was missing. Bland tunes with familiar scales, songs I'd heard somewhere before. The paintings were the same. Burly men looked awkward. I'd heard anatomy knowledge was key for art... but just a few years ago, dissection caused uproars, so the men's latissimus dorsi looked like chicken breasts—wide and flat.
Everything else too. The porcelain was uniformly characterless. Gaudy, sure, but so over-the-top it lost all practicality. Authority from inefficiency? A tool without function is just decoration.
Sculpture...
—The Dawn King Executes the Traitor Louis Philippe
Ugh. Skip.
In the end, I selected no one. My untrained eyes and ears found it all mediocre. Tomorrow, the chamber orchestra for plays and dance. I don't get performing arts... I just wanted to delegate.
—Ooh, isn't that the child prodigy?
Here we go again. After I picked nothing all day, guests hyped participants to liven things up. That's when I really felt like a king. Everyone watched my mood. Power makes sense now. Not that I hated it—or loved it. The stares were burdensome.
♪♪ ♬ ♪♪
Another familiar tune.
♪♬♬♪♪ ♪
This one's listenable, though.
♬♬♪♬♪♬♬♬
Ooh, pulsing with energy?
♪ ♪ ♪ ♬♪ ♬
Did they stumble?
♬♪ ♬ ♬ ♪
Solid composition. Like watching a chase scene.
—A true prodigy. Performance worthy of the title.
Looking around, everyone at the banquet stared at the piano. Me too. We were all audience to this song.
The musician bowed to me as it ended.
"Magnificent. I was utterly immersed. What's your name?"
"An honor, Your Majesty. I am Mozart."
Mozart?
"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?"
"Yes. They called me that as a child prodigy. After adulthood, I changed the middle name from Amadeus to Gottlieb."
"I see. Then I'll call you Mozart for simplicity."
Gottlieb? Fake Mozart? The one I know was Amadeus. Didn't matter if I was wrong or not. What counted was finding a royal musician worth hiring.
"You could elevate France's art scene by a level."
This would do.
"Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. I remember your name precisely."
A dictator's words carry weight.
*
Mozart sent his mother back to Vienna alone and reported to the royal chamber orchestra.
Paris, hailed as the rococo capital, was a sorry sight.
"No one's here?"
As the new royal composer, Mozart despaired at the empty hall even at high noon. This was Louis XVI's design: one true talent per field.
Ballet alone, music alone, architecture alone, furniture carving alone, theater alone, costume design alone—that was French art's reality. They didn't rebel.
"What do we do in cases like this?"
"Most issues go to the Finance Ministry. The Comptroller-General handles them."
"Thank you, Monsieur... Termidor."
"Not at all."
Two years ago, pride would've made him storm out. Now? They'd all known poverty. Better to solve problems than quit blindly—no guarantee of better jobs, just long-term unemployment.
"Let's petition the Finance Ministry as he said."
The hired artists requested assistants and staff. The ministry granted authority and budget for up to 300 per artist. Three hundred aides sufficed for any field.
They first hired promising talents from their hotels. Unlike them, Mozart took his first personnel authority to the Champs-Élysées.
Jobless veterans busked as usual.
"You handle that instrument masterfully. Care to follow me?"
Mozart, mischievous, posed as a noble patron.
"What're you on about, Mozart? Didn't you say you were heading home yesterday?"
But Mozart was one of them. The former child prodigy was Champs-Élysées famous.
"For real. Building a royal orchestra—short on people, so recruiting."
"Don't joke."
Gathering string, brass, percussion players, Mozart flashed the royal-stamped certificate.
"It's legit. See? Authority for 300 hires."
Musicians eyed it skeptically, knowing his pranks.
"Ha! Thought I'd fall for it, Mozart?"
An oboist pointed.
"First line of the delegation: 'Producer'! Royals don't use English."
Mozart reread, surprised.
"True. Why English in a French royal doc?"
"You should know—you faked it? Bold, forging the seal. What if someone snitches?"
"No, it's real!"
"Heard someone forged a royal seal..."
As they bickered, eavesdropping police intervened on the suspicious talk.
"Mozart, hide it quick!"
Too late.
"Saw you hide it. Hand it over quietly."
No threats—just words. Musicians hesitated, then surrendered seeing more police arrive.
"Here... But I'll take responsibility...!"
"Ah, the royal artist's assistant hiring edict. No wonder the artists gathered."
""?""
Unlike expected, the police knew exactly what it was. To them, it screamed forgery.
"Responsibility? You're the hiring proxy for the court artist?"
"N-no, just..."
"Oops, sorry to hinder official business. Carry on. We'll be off."
Commoner cops fled anything tying them to noble arts.
"See? Told you it was real."
Mozart's mischief flared again.
"Now, shall we test my orchestra recruits' skills?"