a variation on it. In vain. Well, thought I, it is because she
does not know how to begin. I then began a variation of the first
measure and told her to continue it in the same manner; that went
fairly well. When she had made an end I asked her to begin
something of her own,--only the first voice, a melody. She
thought a full quarter of an hour, and nothing came. Thereupon I
wrote four measures of a minuet and said to her: 'Now look what
an ass I am; I have begun a minuet and can't finish even the
first part; be good enough to finish it for me.' She thought it
impossible. At length she produced a little something to my joy.
Then I made her finish the minuet, i.e. only the first voice. For
her home work I have given her nothing to do except to alter my
four measures and make something out of them, to invent another
beginning, to keep to the harmony if she must, but to write a new
melody. We shall see what comes of it tomorrow."

(Paris, May 14, 1778, to his father. The pupil was the daughter
of the Duke de Guines, an excellent flautist. "She plays the harp
magnificently," writes Mozart in the same letter; "has a great
deal of talent and genius, and an incomparable memory. She knows
200 pieces and plays them all by heart." When it came to paying
Mozart for the lessons the Duke was anything but a nobleman.)

52. "The Andante is going to give us the most trouble, for it is
full of expression and must be played with taste and accurately
as written in the matter of forte and piano. She is very clever
and learns quickly. The right hand is very good but the left
utterly ruined. I can say that I often pity her when I see that
she is obliged to labor till she gasps, not because she is unapt,
but because she can't help it,--she is used to playing so, nobody