When the King of Spain ordered Luigi Boccherini to change a passage he disliked, the composer went home and doubled it, then played it again and was fired on the spot. This episode explores the life behind that act of defiance, from a childhood in Lucca, Italy, where his musician father began cello lessons at age five, through teenage years touring to Rome and Vienna's Burgtheater. On the road he learned to play violin parts on the cello at original pitch when violinists fell ill, a feat of physical mastery that reshaped what he believed the instrument could do.

We follow his move to Madrid in 1768, his patronage under Infante Luis Antonio, and the exile to the small mountain towns of Arenas de San Pedro and Candeleda after the royal clash. Rather than ending his career, that isolation let him absorb Spanish guitar and street traditions int ...