Maestro, a child of the Toymaker, was an elemental manifestation of music itself. They had control over music and were able to consume it, in the form of unsung songs and stifled melodies, as sustenance.
If they did this directly from an individual, as with Timothy Drake in 1925, it would kill the victim. They could be summoned and banished with two different "lost chords" respectively, and came into conflict with the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday in 1963 at the EMI Recording Studios in London. They particularly loved aeolian tones, such as the sound of a nuclear winter, which they described as "the purest music of all".
Biography[]
Maestro was a godlike cosmic entity born to the Toymaker, outside of N-Space. The Doctor presumed Maestro to be "part of the pantheon". Despite this lineage, Maestro had little love for the Toymaker, singing that "daddy" was "mean" and "tough" after stating that they "should be thankful" to the Doctor for trapping him. Maestro had the ability to control music itself, weaponizing it, transmuting the audio into a physical form resembling common human musical notation, and even consuming it to sustain themself. Like their father, Maestro had a prosodic laughter that was identical to the Giggle.
Maestro was the parent of Henry Arbinger, whom Maestro named so as to make his initial and surname spell out "Harbinger", meaning a person or thing announcing or signalling the approach of another. In 1925, Henry Arbinger was a student under Timothy Drake. When Henry expressed boredom with the music they were playing, Timothy suggested that the might find something called the the Devil's chord more interesting. When, however, he played it, it allowed Maestro to enter into the world. Maestro praised Timothy as a genius for having found the lost chord. They referred to Henry Arbinger as their "prelude" and then made him disappear. They asked Timothy if they would like them to set free the songs in his heart. When he wholeheartedly agreed, they consumed the music from him, causing him to collapse on the floor, dead. Despite Henry Arbinger referring to them with the gendered term "daddy", Maestro was more godlike than human like, and therefore could be considered agendered, so traditional pronouns could not apply.
Maestro's entry into the world created a new timeline in which humanity took a dark turn. By 1963, Maestro was seeking to consume music and grow strong enough to devour the Music of the Spheres, eradicating all life in the universe and leaving nothing but aeolian tones. Meanwhile, humanity, robbed of a major form of communication, would succumb to increasing levels of violence and anger due to pent up emotions, ultimately leading to nuclear war and the destruction of much of the world by 2024.
Maestro's efforts were foiled when the Fifteenth Doctor, and then John Lennon and Paul McCartney, completed the lost chord of banishment and removed them from existence. Much like the Toymaker, this banishment was retroactive as 1963 returned to how it originally was immediately with no lingering sign of Maestro having ever existed. However during the subsequent musical celebration led by the Doctor and Ruby, Henry reappeared at the EMI Recording Studios, hinting They may eventually return. (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Doctor Who (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
Sutekh later referred to Maestro as the God of music when invading UNIT through the Doctor's TARDIS in 2024. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
Behind the scenes[]
- As Maestro is the Toymaker's child, this would make Hecuba — the Toymaker's sister — their aunt.
- To portray Maestro, Jinkx Monsoon took inspiration from both Disney villains (which she notes is already built into her drag performances) and past Doctor Who villains, having previously watched the show as a fan. Monsoon particularly looked to Michelle Gomez's performance as Missy, citing her as someone who "toes that line between the heightened, stylized, almost Shakespearean elements of Doctor Who, but also is very truthful, genuinely scary and just a very effective villain."[1]
- The word "Maestro" is the direct Italian and Spanish translation to the word "Master", generating ambiguity about Maestro and the Master being the same character; showrunner Russell T Davies confirmed that, in fact, they are not.[2]
