Vivaldi and the Number 3 by Ron Butlin

Vivaldi and the Number 3

Ron Butlin

Just a bit different! A collection of short stories looking at the lives of the great composers in a totally off the wall way! Imagine Mozart going for a career change. Can you cope with the idea of him being a private eye? And what about Haydn seeking publicity on the Jerry Springer show? Entertaining stuff!

Extract
Wolfgang sat down, rolled a cigarette and began to make plans. A few moments ago he'd told his father he'd written his very last contradanse for the Archbishop and had had it with wigs, breeches and batons. He was going to be a private detective, a shamus. Leopold had said nothing, but turned on his heels and marched straight out through the door. Which said it all. The ex-composer blew a perfect smoke ring and gazed into it. Yes, surely there was more to life than sitting two places down from the cook at the servants' table and grinding out endless cassations, divertimenti and serenades like some eighteenth-century muzak-monkey. Out of sheer habit a few minutes later, he found himself humming the possible opening bars of a new symphony. He decided to call it K183. 'No! No! No!' he shouted aloud. He was going to be a private eye. Starting right now. He stood up, wrenched off his wig and drop-kicked it across the room. No more symphonies for him, no more concertos, no more K numbers. But the more he tried to picture himself tracking down stashed loot, doing tail jobs, following a paper trail of numbered accounts to the Cayman Islands, discovering bodies in trunks and putting the squeeze on blackmailers - the more K183 just seemed to keep on coming: the exposition of first and second subjects, the development, recapitulation, coda. Perfect sonata form.
Parallels
  • The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin
  • Clara by Janice Galloway