Click on the image to see genius in action!
Since my freshman year of college, my compositional pen has lain
dormant. I'm happy to report, however, that this morning I experienced
a madly prolific spell of creativity. I am proud to introduce to the
world, and in particular to the attentions of British copyright law, my three-act opera Tristan + Isolde,
which bears certain superficial resemblances to the similarly titled
Richard Wagner opera, though in truth there are numerous small but
telling differences of tempo, dynamics, articulation, and
instrumentation (a brief xylophone solo in the King Mark scene, for
example); also my lovely orchestral tone poem Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fern and
a song entitled "Hey, Jude?" in the key of F-flat. My first set of nine
symphonies should be done by the end of the day. I look forward to
receiving worldwide royalties from these powerful and original new
works.
Update: Marc Geelhoed
of Chicago has been delving into the manuscripts of Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony and has come to a startling conclusion: the eighth-rest at the
very beginning of the work should in fact be an eighth-note G, meaning
that the symphony's famous "fate motto" is not da-da-da-DAH but da-da-da-da-DAH.
As Mr. Geelhoed's legal counsel in this matter, I, in turn, have been
delving into the intricacies of early nineteenth-century
Austrian law, and have come to the perhaps equally startling
conclusion that Mr. Geelhoed is owed retroactive royalties on
all performances of Beethoven's Fifth over the past two hundred years,
including but not limited to recordings, electronic transmissions,
print reproductions, Morse Code, and humming. Although I expect to
receive a portion of these royalties myself, I wish to make clear that
my primary motivation is not untrammeled greed but a simple desire to
see justice done at long last.