The Great Composer Quiz – August 28, 2020
This time it’s a Quiz about making the most of a travel layover. During a five-day stage-coach ride this Great Composer shared the journey, as he described, with two unsociable men who smoked foul tobacco. At one post station no fresh horses were readily available and the passengers were told they would likely have a long wait. Our Great Composer entered the station inn, sat at the piano and started improvising. The innkeeper, his wife and daughters, fellow travelers, and a couple of locals watched as he played. When the coachman entered and said fresh horses were now ready he was told to hush and have a seat. Two hours later, our Great Composer had exhausted his fragile self and stopped. He was carried into the coach loaded with gifts – cakes, sweets and wine – and sent on his way with blessings from all. He would later say this response moved him more than any later triumph in the most sophisticated drawing-rooms of Europe. So who was this traveling piano man, this Great Composer?