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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: YASID
Date: Tue, 21 May 2024 14:56:55 -0400
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Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <69mn4jppd29is4apku7o4njitkt5cpkhm6@4ax.com>,
> Chris Duck  <chrisduck@coldmail.com> wrote:
>> Thanks!
>>
>> On Mon, 20 May 2024 17:22:22 -0400, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> technovelist wrote:
>>>> Anyone have a reference for a short story in which a famous composer
>> is "brought back from the dead"
>>>> by giving a completely nonmusical person a "personality transplant"
>> (my term, I'm not sure what it
>>>> was called in the story)? The twist is that the "revived composer"
>> realizes just before they take
>>>> away the personality transplant is that he is the critics' version of
>> the composer, a complete hack
>>>> with no actual original ability.
>>>>
>>>> I read this in a short story collection. It might be James Blish or
>> Arthur C. Clarke but I haven't
>>>> seen any titles that ring a bell in their bibliographies.
>>>
>>> It is "A work of art" by James Blish.  The composer was Richard Strauss.
>>>
>>> Robert Mills edited an anthology in which authors were invited to submit
>>> their best stories.  This was Blish's choice.
>>>
>>> William Hyde
>>>
> 
> That's interesting, in that it certainly doesn't sound as good as say,
> "Surface Tensin".

It's a complex story about identity, and while the context is distinctly 
secular, I think it resonates with some of the religious issues which 
form part of Blish's fiction.

Also, it's quite an original story, and the twist at the end is nice, 
the kind you should have foreseen, but probably did not. I can't imagine 
any other SF author writing it.


In addition, he seems to have known a fair amount about Strauss, and 
this gave him a chance to look at the composer's work from the 
perspective of the reconstructed Strauss.  The latter does not like some 
aspects of the original's work, perhaps giving Blish a chance to air 
longstanding irritations.

If I were to write a similar story about Dvorak, for example, I'd have 
the reconstructed Anton wonder how he could have marred so great a work 
as this eighth symphony with such a slapdash ending (as I understand it, 
the musical world somehow disagrees with me about this, perhaps as much 
as I disagree with Blish about Strauss.  How inexplicable!)




William Hyde