(Found) Looking for short story about artists having to create truly original works circa 1970s

[eleeart]

I read this story about 20 years ago but am sure it was old then. The plot revolves around a future where artists are not allowed to be influenced by other artists. A composer is caught listening to Bach or something and has his hand cut off. It finishes with the man with no hands, blind and I think deaf, only being able to be a traffic controller, that is holding the stop/ go sign at roadworks. Its driving me nuts as to what anthology I read it in and who is the author.

 

[otistdog]

Possibly "Unaccompanied Sonata" (1979) by Orson Scott Card? Per the Wikipedia article on the story:

"A child is brought up to be a musical prodigy. He is raised alone in a cabin by unsinging servants, in order to guarantee that his only musical influences are natural. He plays on a complicated instrument capable of a wide range of sound, but is absolutely disallowed from hearing the music of others, for, he is told, that would corrupt his originality and make his work derivative. At some point he is, against the wishes of his keepers, introduced to the music of Bach, and when this is discovered by a 'Watcher,' he is uprooted from his composition at the age of thirty, and is then barred by law from ever again making music."

 

[hitmouse]

Yea. Unaccompanied Sonata. Omni ?1979. I have that edition somewhere.

 

[eleeart]

Yes! Thank you, and I think I read it in Omni too.