How did they die?

[Bob]

"Way to bring down the party Bob..."   

How did the composers die?  I was wondering about Mozart, but a thread for them all won't hurt.


And, if they were in that condition today, could they be saved?


We've got.... dying of old age, brain tumors, syphilus, conducting yourself to death....




What and who and would they have lived if it happened today?


(Bob concentrates very hard.)
I predict..... Someone will post nearly this exact question on October 28th, 2005.  Let's see if I'm right... 

[BoliverAllmon]

I hear that Mozart's liver condition is easily treatable today.

[rhapsody in orange]

Hmm Chopin died of tuberculosis (reminds me of pocorina) and Debussy of rectal cancer.
Prokofiev died of brain haemorrage I think.
Looks like composers are rather prone to illness hee.

[Bob]

Gershwin died of a brain tumor.

Was it Schubert who died of syphilus?

Then that conductor who stabbed himself in the foot with the baton, got grangreen (I think), and died.  Can't think of his name.... Lutti, Lippy, Luppi... dang...

[bernhard]

I hear that Mozart's liver condition is easily treatable today.

Poisoning?

[bernhard]

Looks like composers are rather prone to illness hee.

Not only to illness, but to death as well. Most of them are dead now.  

[bernhard]

Then that conductor who stabbed himself in the foot with the baton, got grangreen (I think), and died.  Can't think of his name.... Lutti, Lippy, Luppi... dang...

Lully.

[bernhard]

Beethoven: Lead poisoning from drinking wine in lead mugs.

J. S. Bach: From the medical treatment following his cataract operation (the operation was successful) (But he was also diabetic)

John Field: Same as Debussy.

Schubert: Syphilis

Edward Macdowell – He was run over by a cart and had brain damage – he didn’t die immediately, but lived for many years dwindling away and never recovered his mental faculties.

Schumann: Syphilis?

Delius: Syphilis.

Tchaikovski: Died from the treatment for cholera (which he may have willingly contracted. The treatment consisted in submerging the patient in a bath tub full of boiling water.

 

[pianohopper]

then, if anybody's seen the film Amadeus, there's the theory that he worked himself to death -- or was worked and haunted to death by his father's ghost, aka jealous contemporary, Antony Salieri.

[bernhard]

then, if anybody's seen the film Amadeus, there's the theory that he worked himself to death -- or was worked and haunted to death by his father's ghost, aka jealous contemporary, Antony Salieri.

Not only haunted him to death, but when he was not looking slipped some poison in his drink. That's the conspiracy theory anyway. Most people in the know however dismiss it. (But Salieri, in old age (he was senile) and just before dying took to shoulting: "I poisoned, Mozart, I poisoned Mozart! Or something to that effect.

[da jake]

Alkan - falling off a piece of furniture after trying to retrieve a book on the the high shelf. 

[BoliverAllmon]

Alkan - falling off a piece of furniture after trying to retrieve a book on the the high shelf. 

are you serious?

the conductor dude had blood poisoning is what I was told.

[thracozaag]

Alkan - falling off a piece of furniture after trying to retrieve a book on the the high shelf. 

  Which, ironically, was the Talmud.

koji

[yamagal]

Tchaikovski: Died from the treatment for cholera (which he may have willingly contracted. The treatment consisted in submerging the patient in a bath tub full of boiling water.

Oh man that is just a stoooopid treatment.  What a way to go.   

[da jake]

  Which, ironically, was the Talmud.

koji

Possibly. But primary sources, including the KAN's student and the doctor she called, indicate that it was the fall that caused serious injury and not the books that fell. The student's account makes no mention of the Talmud.

I talked to a conductor and Alkan expert named Mark Starr, and he thinks the detail about Alkan being crushed by the Talmud was invented by one of Alkan's editors, Isidore Philip (he had a thing for the fantastic). 

[Jacey1973]

Beethoven: Lead poisoning from drinking wine in lead mugs.

J. S. Bach: From the medical treatment following his cataract operation (the operation was successful) (But he was also diabetic)

John Field: Same as Debussy.

Schubert: Syphilis

Edward Macdowell – He was run over by a cart and had brain damage – he didn’t die immediately, but lived for many years dwindling away and never recovered his mental faculties.

Schumann: Syphilis?

Delius: Syphilis.

Tchaikovski: Died from the treatment for cholera (which he may have willingly contracted. The treatment consisted in submerging the patient in a bath tub full of boiling water.

 

Wasn't Schumann in a mental institution in his last years? How did he contract syphilis?

I heard Schubert slept with a prostitute once after his friends got him drunk on his birthday and he suffered ill health ever since after that. A real shame...men never change...

[jas]

Tchaikovski: Died from the treatment for cholera (which he may have willingly contracted. The treatment consisted in submerging the patient in a bath tub full of boiling water.

Really? I didn't know that. I always thought it was the cholera that killed him. That must have been an awful way to die...

I heard Schubert slept with a prostitute once after his friends got him drunk on his birthday and he suffered ill health ever since after that.

Yeah, prostitution wasn't uncommon at all in Schubert's Vienna. It isn't known for certain that Schubert died of syphillis, though. It's likely but there's evidence for and against it.

Was it Puccini who died from pneumonia after his wife locked him out of the house for going out to the pub?

[bernhard]

Wasn't Schumann in a mental institution in his last years? How did he contract syphilis?

I heard Schubert slept with a prostitute once after his friends got him drunk on his birthday and he suffered ill health ever since after that. A real shame...men never change...

Allegedly Schumann contracted syphilis during his youth (and went through some weird treatment like dipping his goose in sheep’s blood). The theory is that his madness was the tertiary stage of the sickness which eventually killed him. The fact that he had syphilis would also have been a major fact on Wieck’s resistace to him marrying Clara. However I have heard some doubts thrown into the syphilis theory, mainly the fact that Clara never had the disease in spite of the fact that they had several children (8, I think). Hence the interrogation mark.

I need to talk  to a medical doctor to clear this up: can syphilis in one of it later stages stop being contagious? Not enough time to google it, I am afraid. Maybe someone will clarify the matter.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Really? I didn't know that. I always thought it was the cholera that killed him. That must have been an awful way to die...
 Yeah, prostitution wasn't uncommon at all in Schubert's Vienna. It isn't known for certain that Schubert died of syphillis, though. It's likely but there's evidence for and against it.

Was it Puccini who died from pneumonia after his wife locked him out of the house for going out to the pub?

Tchaikovsky: The full gory scene of his death is re-enacted in all of its detail in Ken Russel’s movie “The Music Lovers”. Incidentally, Tchaikovsky’s mother whom he dearly loved and to whom he was very attached died the same way when he was a child (yes, Ken show it too!)

(And the pub is worth it )

[bernhard]

are you serious?

the conductor dude had blood poisoning is what I was told.

Lully: He was not just a “conductor”, but the most important French composer fo the Baroque (even though he was Italian) who had an obscene amount of political power in the court of Louis XIV (“the Sun King”) because Louis was crazy about dance (he was a n expert dancer himself) and Lully provided him with an endless stream of music to dance to. There is a wonderful French movie about it all: “Le Roi Dance” (The King Dances). Highly recommended.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Barbosa-piano]

Rachmaninoff: lung Cancer- Too many cigaretes.

Beethoven: There are many stories: One is that he died from pneumonia after running after his beloved on the rain, other states that he died from poisoning by lead, used in that time's medicine to treat Syphilis (One of the claimed reasons for his nervous behavior). Other is that he already suffered from complications of the digestive system, the intestine, specifically...

Debussy: Rectal Cancer

Chopin: Tuberculosis

Brahms: Cancer (sources differ in either Liver or Pancreas)

Lizst: Pneumonia

Handel: Cause? After eight years of blindness he died in London.

Haydn: Died during Napoleon's invasion of Vienna... Cause?

Bartok: Leukemia

Schostakovich: Lung Cancer

I'll continue later...
Mario Barbosa

[pianobabe_56]

Bach had diabetes? Seriously? (Has this been confirmed...it's not just some theory or something?)

[Dazzer]

I heard Mozart got killed in a minor plague outbreak. Hence buried him in a mass grave.

[Barbosa-piano]

I heard Mozart got killed in a minor plague outbreak. Hence buried him in a mass grave.

I was watching on the European News, the documentary on the mass graves, and how major cities as Paris have incredibly huge undergroud mass graves, which can collapse easily, being distributed in huge caves, with organized pathways. They talked about how Mozart was buried in one of those. Supposedly, he was buried in an unmarked grave near Vienna. His body was probably removed from the grave and put into one of these mass graves.

[Teddybear]

Rachmaninoff: lung Cancer- Too many cigaretes.

I thought it was skin cancer.

T

[jas]

Tchaikovsky: The full gory scene of his death is re-enacted in all of its detail in Ken Russel’s movie “The Music Lovers”. Incidentally, Tchaikovsky’s mother whom he dearly loved and to whom he was very attached died the same way when he was a child (yes, Ken show it too!)

Ooh, I'll have to see that film. Sounds lovely.

(And the pub is worth it )

Nah, I think the wife had it right!

Jas

[prometheus]

Didn't Mozart die of food poisoning? He ate raw meat with lethal bacteria.

[bernhard]

Bach had diabetes? Seriously? (Has this been confirmed...it's not just some theory or something?)

Yes, this is well known (diabetes type II – the one that does not require insulin and tends to be a consequence of obesity – very common on people after 60). Bach’s eyes problems may have been a consequence.

[Barbosa-piano]

Yes, this is well known (diabetes type II – the one that does not require insulin and tends to be a consequence of obesity – very common on people after 60). Bach’s eyes problems may have been a consequence.

I believe this is the best explanation to his death, even based on consequences, his age of 65 years, and his eye problems -although many sources say he simply had several cataract operations which were successful... And which I believe could be very painful on his time...

[llamaman]

Granados died when his ship was torpedoed during a war, I think.

[bernhard]

I believe this is the best explanation to his death, even based on consequences, his age of 65 years, and his eye problems -although many sources say he simply had several cataract operations which were successful... And which I believe could be very painful on his time...

J. S. Bach’s death.

The main problem was that he [Bach] suffered from increasing pain and could see less and less. Even the town physician, Nagel, was able to diagnose reliably that a clouding of the eye lens was discernible. He could not help, though it was commonly known what could bring help: a cataract operation. The clouded lenses had to be cut out and tucked under the irises; the missing lenses could be replaced reasonably well afterward by strong glasses, cataract glasses. That sounded logical and even fairly simple. But this operation demanded of the surgeon not only the highest skill but also practice in the technique, and who had that in Leipzig?

Happenstance came to Bach’s aid. At the time an oculist (or ophtalmiator, the Greek term he tended to use), the Englishman John Taylor, was travelling through half of Europe. On his tour through Germany, he turned up at Leipzig in the second half of March 1750. He prided himself on his ability to incise cataracts. He boasted of many successes, and this seemed like a unique opportunity for Bach. After all, what alternative was left?

The operating room was located in that very same Three Swans Inn where the notable audition of Bach’s successor had taken place. The operation began with the application of hot boiled apples to the eyes in order to soften the cornea. The patient was tied down on a chair. There was no anaesthetic of any kind. Dr. Taylor had a strong assistant who clamped Bach’s head in the vice of his hands. Sterilizing the instruments was out of the question; no one even knew what that meant. (A hundred years later the physician Semmelweis was still declared foolish  by his colleagues because he insisted they should wash their hands before a delivery).

As small as the wounds were, the operation must have been a good bit nastier than pulling teeth, a procedure which also took place without any anaesthetic in those days. But what followed the ordeal itself was even worse, for then the medical treatment in support of the operation came into play. In Bach;s case it consisted of repeated bloodletting, in conjunction with laxatives and such poisons as belladonna and aconite “to combat the evil humours”.

In the meantime, Dr. Taylor travelled to Dresden, and when he returned to Leipzig at the beginning of April he was obliged to recognise that the lenses had moved back into the pupils again. He operated a second time, with the same follow-up treatment, of course.

From the day of the first operation Bach was entirely blind, with bandages and a black blindfold over his eyes. He could make out his surroundings only by touch, and had to be led about. He also had to be fed, for he would have to learn anew where the plate was and where to aim the spoon when he directed it to his mouth and even where his mouth was. At the same time the follow-up treatment ensured that he must have felt sicker, weaker and more wretched as each day passed. Whether he was actually diabetic did not matter anymore. The two horse cures prescribed one after the other would have shattered even a man in the prime of his life, and he was far form his prime anymore – the attack in May of the previous year had made him aware of that.

It was the end of winter when he submitted to the knife. Spring arrived without his seeing anything. The summer came and nothing had changed except that he was becoming weaker and weaker.
Finally he could no longer stand the darkness. On July 18 he tore the blindfold form his eyes, and he could see again. So, the second operation had succeeded. But the patient did not survive the miracle. The overwhelming strain of the months he had gone through was compounded by his excitement over the outcome. A few hours later a stroke laid him low. He lingered for ten days more with a raging fever. On the evening of July 28, at almost a quarter past eight, he closed his eyes forever, without having regained clear consciousness.

This last half year had been his long path form Gethsemane to Golgotha – without a crucifixion to be sure, but with a flagellation and a crown of thorns and after many humiliations. And on his tombstone the words from 2 Timothy 4:7 might have been written:

I have fought a good fight
I have finished my course
I have kept the faith.”


(Klaus Eidam – The true life of J. S. Bach – Basic Books)

Highly recommended reading!

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Granados died when his ship was torpedoed during a war, I think.

Yes. He couldn't swim. However he was safe in a lifeboat, until he saw that his wife (who apparently could swim) was at sea. In his anxiety he forgot he couldn't swim, threw himself in the water to save her and drwoned. She survived.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Barbosa-piano]

J. S. Bach’s death.

The main problem was that he [Bach] suffered from increasing pain and could see less and less. Even the town physician, Nagel, was able to diagnose reliably that a clouding of the eye lens was discernible. He could not help, though it was commonly known what could bring help: a cataract operation. The clouded lenses had to be cut out and tucked under the irises; the missing lenses could be replaced reasonably well afterward by strong glasses, cataract glasses. That sounded logical and even fairly simple. But this operation demanded of the surgeon not only the highest skill but also practice in the technique, and who had that in Leipzig?

Happenstance came to Bach’s aid. At the time an oculist (or ophtalmiator, the Greek term he tended to use), the Englishman John Taylor, was travelling through half of Europe. On his tour through Germany, he turned up at Leipzig in the second half of March 1750. He prided himself on his ability to incise cataracts. He boasted of many successes, and this seemed like a unique opportunity for Bach. After all, what alternative was left?

The operating room was located in that very same Three Swans Inn where the notable audition of Bach’s successor had taken place. The operation began with the application of hot boiled apples to the eyes in order to soften the cornea. The patient was tied down on a chair. There was no anaesthetic of any kind. Dr. Taylor had a strong assistant who clamped Bach’s head in the vice of his hands. Sterilizing the instruments was out of the question; no one even knew what that meant. (A hundred years later the physician Semmelweis was still declared foolish by his colleagues because he insisted they should wash their hands before a delivery).

As small as the wounds were, the operation must have been a good bit nastier than pulling teeth, a procedure which also took place without any anaesthetic in those days. But what followed the ordeal itself was even worse, for then the medical treatment in support of the operation came into play. In Bach;s case it consisted of repeated bloodletting, in conjunction with laxatives and such poisons as belladonna and aconite “to combat the evil humours”.

In the meantime, Dr. Taylor travelled to Dresden, and when he returned to Leipzig at the beginning of April he was obliged to recognise that the lenses had moved back into the pupils again. He operated a second time, with the same follow-up treatment, of course.

From the day of the first operation Bach was entirely blind, with bandages and a black blindfold over his eyes. He could make out his surroundings only by touch, and had to be led about. He also had to be fed, for he would have to learn anew where the plate was and where to aim the spoon when he directed it to his mouth and even where his mouth was. At the same time the follow-up treatment ensured that he must have felt sicker, weaker and more wretched as each day passed. Whether he was actually diabetic did not matter anymore. The two horse cures prescribed one after the other would have shattered even a man in the prime of his life, and he was far form his prime anymore – the attack in May of the previous year had made him aware of that.

It was the end of winter when he submitted to the knife. Spring arrived without his seeing anything. The summer came and nothing had changed except that he was becoming weaker and weaker.
Finally he could no longer stand the darkness. On July 18 he tore the blindfold form his eyes, and he could see again. So, the second operation had succeeded. But the patient did not survive the miracle. The overwhelming strain of the months he had gone through was compounded by his excitement over the outcome. A few hours later a stroke laid him low. He lingered for ten days more with a raging fever. On the evening of July 28, at almost a quarter past eight, he closed his eyes forever, without having regained clear consciousness.

This last half year had been his long path form Gethsemane to Golgotha – without a crucifixion to be sure, but with a flagellation and a crown of thorns and after many humiliations. And on his tombstone the words from 2 Timothy 4:7 might have been written:

I have fought a good fight
I have finished my course
I have kept the faith.”


(Klaus Eidam – The true life of J. S. Bach – Basic Books)

Highly recommended reading!

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Wow! Thank you Bernhard, that is a great source... I definitely have to get this book. 

[claudio]

schubert suffered from syphilis but he died of typhus. 

[ted]

Waller died on board a train, of pneumonia, no doubt aggravated by his colossal drinking habit.
James Johnson died from the consequences of two strokes.
Scott Joplin died from syphilis of the brain.
James Scott died from kidney failure.
Art Tatum died from uraemic poisoning due to excessive beer consumption (yes, that's what it says in my liner notes)
Louis Chauvin (collaborated with Joplin on Heliotrope Bouquet) died at twenty-six from a mixture of venereal diseases and drug taking.
Jelly Roll Morton died from heart failure aggravated by asthma.

[luc]

Verdi died of a stroke
& Wagner - heart attack
Stravinsky- died of old age I think (??)