The Great Composer

One cold winter in a huge and historic city – a great composer took a squalid little room. The walls were damp, the furniture was mouldy, the piano was barely in tune – but he paid the landlady a month's rent, and settled down to begin his greatest composition.

But at the end of his first week, although the composing was going well, the composer found that he had no money left for food.

"But what need have I for food?" he asked himself. "For music is, itself, a form of food, they say. I have logs to keep me warm – and soon I shall be finished!"

So he continued, starving hungry, but well-warmed by the logs, until they ran out as well another week later.

"What need have I for furniture?" the composer asked himself. "Chairs? Tables? Beds? Unnecessary luxuries! A well-earned rest is as well spent on the floor. Anyway they were mouldy – and soon I shall be finished!"

So he burned all the furniture and continued with his greatest composition.

But at the end of the third week – which was bitterly cold – the composer ran out of furniture, yet he still had more composing to do.

"What need have I of a piano?" he asked himself. "For I can hear my music in my mind. This instrument is a physical encumbrance to my creative needs; it is barely in tune – and soon I shall be finished!"

So he chopped up the piano and he burned it and it lasted for a week.

But at the end of this fourth week the rooms were colder than ever, and he needed just one more day on his greatest composition.

"What need have I for my previous compositions?" remarked the composer, eyeing the pile of papers in the corner of the empty room. "They were but exercises in learning which have enabled me to develop to the point where I can write my greatest composition – which soon I shall have finished!"

So the composer threw his previous compositions on the fire.

There was enough of them to burn all day, and late into the night, – when finally he completed his greatest composition.

The following morning the landlady came round to collect another month's rent, and was horrified when she let herself in to find the room completely empty – but for a manuscript and the body of a dead composer.

"I don't know," she said to herself – lighting a fresh fire with the manuscript – "But that's the last time I'm taking a musician."

Author's note: A fair point, musicians do make lousy tenants, but painters tend to leave more fingerprints.