What a joke. I have ordered every book which circles around the subject of the sex lives of famous composers. I have combed through every article, every blog post in search of something I can in turn serve up to you, remixed, so to speak. Something torrid, something inappropriate, titillating, so that next time you hear a Debussy Arabesque your pre-programmed brain doesn’t automatically turn to the image of Monet’s lily pads or a cloudy seascape. But Debussy, though he did, yes, arouse the passions in the women in his life — several of them attempted suicide (or is it the same one who made several attempts?) — he doesn’t really inspire the passions in me. Not those passions, anyway. Nor does that strange one they always save for last in the countdown, the notoriously perverted Percy Grainger, whose music I won’t pretend to know much about, and whose incestuous/Sadomasochistic predilections make him a rarity in the world of classical composers. Oh, by rarity I don’t mean he was alone in his unusual tastes. Rare only in the sense that he did not make much attempt to hide them. For me, personally, his fantasy life crosses a line I have no interest in crossing along with him. And you know I am the last to judge. But he takes the cake, as you might say.
And Mozart the genius? With his bounding energy and shameless, adolescent, enthusiasm? We have read his letters. We have puzzled over what an ‘ass feather’ could really be referring to, and we have passed on casting him as the lead in this project. Yes, these things are personal: you are intrigued by the sound of an ass feather, whereas I am staring, as we speak, at a diseased-looked pigeon perched on my balcony, not much liking the sound of an ass feather. Not today at least. And unfortunately, as I am the one tasked with doing this, you are stuck behind my lens, my filter. Though I don’t think you are worried. And if you are, you shouldn’t be. As you know, my filter is generous.
So who will it be?
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