Vivaldi and the Number 3

In these playful vignettes, Ron Butlin looks at the lives of great composers and philosophers from unusual but always highly entertaining angles. Vivaldi's creative block is freed with God's gift of the number 3; Mozart struggles for financial independence by becoming Salzburg's first private eye; Haydn's publicity benefits from an appearance on Jerry Springer...Many previously undocumented events from the history of Western civilization are relayed here with a zany touch and a delicious sense of the absurd. When Seneca tests the validity of stoicism by taking up residence in 21st century Edinburgh, Ron Butlin brings these delightful tales to his home town.

ISBN	1852428422	DEWEY edition	DC22
ISBN13	9781852428426 (What's this?)	Pages	256
Publisher	Profile Books Ltd	Volumes	1
Imprint	Serpent's Tail	Weight (grammes)	163
Format	Paperback	Published in	London
Publication date	01 Jul 2004	Height (mm)	198
Illustrator	Sibbald, John	Width (mm)	129
Library of Congress	2004103022	Spine width (mm)	15
DEWEY	823.914	Academic level	General

		The lives
		Vivaldi, the jumping cardinal, God and the number 3		3
		Vivaldi and the heavens' multicoloured luminous stars		9
		Vivaldi learns a new skill		17
		Alma Mahler leaves the nineteenth century behind		21
		How Bach won the battle against modern technology		29
		Beethoven's response to the hanging gardens of neglect		33
		Johannes Brahms goes in search of his first symphony		41
		The fairy-tale science fiction world of Antonin Dvorak		49
		Haydn learns to put his demon to good use		57
		Mozart tries out a major career move		65
		Schubert and the magic business card		71
		Travelling via San Francisco and the moon : seven days in the life of Robert Schumann		81
		Jean Sibelius is invited to run away and join the circus		89
		Richard Strauss and Pharaoh Amenhotep IV - their dreams		95
		Tchaikovsky decides which world he belongs to		107
		Tafelmusik and cat-scarers : a brief biography of the real Georg Telemann		111
		The Mighty Handful versus the rest of the world		121
		The letters
		How composer Q chose a better life		131
		Girls, glamour and real estate : the secret life of composer X		139
		How recent, irreversible changes in the world have affected the life of composer Y		145
		Composer Z explores the emptiness lying beyond the end of the alphabet		149
		The thoughts
		David Hume and the pixels of gratification		157
		Nietzsche breaks through the cycle of eternal recurrence		163
		More...

"'It's not often that composers inspire such funny surrealism. I enjoyed these very much.' Bernard MacLaverty; 'Like his landmark The Sound of my Voice, Ron Butlin's Night Visits creates a displaced world of jeopardy and emotional damage' Alan Warner; 'Spellbinding and compassionate' Independent; 'Butlin is a successor to Kafka or Borges, two names that should be invoked whenever the necessity to save the short story may be questioned' Time Out; 'For far too long, Butlin has been one of contemporary British literature's best kept"

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