Why Don’t Composers Just Skip Out The Bad Pieces And Write Only Great Ones?

I’m a huge fan of classical music, and I love the way great masterpieces have inspired me throughout my life. There’s nothing like a great symphony to get the loins in gear.

One thing that has always puzzled me though is the way composers wasted so much time writing not great music. They had the ability to write great music, so why didn’t they just do that? That’s what I would have done.

Of course I understand why a composer who isn’t great would write not great music. That makes perfect sense if you really think about it. But when a Great composer writes a piece that isn’t great, what is going on? I hate it when they let me down personally.

Perhaps composers just didn’t understand the creative process. The point of creativity is to create something perfect, not to work at things until they get better. If it was just about that then anyone could do it! I want a pantheon of the greats, not a panto of the grating.

I think we should remove all the pieces that make me upset in this way. I thought that was the whole point of having a canon, so that I didn’t have to watch a dud being fired. Instead, I could just load up with that canon with all my great balls. Throw out the wrinkly balls, as I say.

As a great poet once said, true wisdom is going on a journey back to where you started and knowing for the first time that the place wasn’t very good actually. And if you are really wise you will know that you don’t even need to do the journey in the first place- just learn to be able to see what isn’t great and avoid it.