This may be a very strange discussion but I thought it could be quite interesting.
If you have an interesting but sad fact about any composer you can share it.
No. Don't think I'm a raving lunatic. You'll see its quite fun.
I'll start:
Did you that that when Beethoven's hearing was getting worse he had oneday sawed the legs off his grand piano so that it touched the ground. He would then press one ear against the floor and pound his fingers on the keyboard in his desperation to hear the notes!!!
Tragic huh! Your turn.

I always find it really sad that Bizet's Carmen was not well received on its first performance, and the composer never lived to see it reach the huge success it has today.

My two favourite pioneer Be-Bop jazz trombonists, J J Johnson and Frank Rossolino both committed suicide. I find that both sad and tragic and a reflection of how fame and adulation can be a bad negative aspect to talent.

I'm not going to give a tragic fact but just going to say something which I find interesting.
J.S Bach married his cousin as his 1st wife.
I mean, isn't that disgusting?
How can one marry his or her relative?

Another fact is that JS Bach had a total of 20 children!
That's a lot a lot!!
Oh my gosh I was instantly dumbfounded when my viva voce teacher told me that!

Marrying your first cousin isn't that odd, really - very common practice amongst royalty and aristos (in Pride and Prejudice, the plan is for Darcy to be married off to his first cousin). Perfectly legal in the UK, and many european countries, but not in the US.


(Of course the evident effect of inbreeding on royalty doesn't make for a strong pro marry your cousin argument, lol!)

The "sad" fact here is with regard to his poor wife, who must have spent too thirds of her waking life changing nappies (no Pampers in those days) and breastfeeding, while lusty old johann was amusing himself on the organ stool.

True!
Can't stop laughing!!
*giggles*

It's not just royalty that marry their cousins. I have relatives that have married their cousins. My aunt's first cousin is also her third cousin (work that one out).

I think it's likely it was lusty JSB's servants who were washing the nappies....

Is it just me, or does that sound like a line from The Sun?

But wasn't that a time where a quite a few children didn't live past their 5th birthday or something?

I've got one: Poulenc actually wrote music .




(just kidding - a couple of his pieces are okay)

I like his flute and organ pieces!

Yes.
Quite a lot of JS Bach's children died at a young age.
High infant mortality rate, I suppose.
That's a tragic fact.

So did Jerry Lee Lewis- and she was 13.

Puccini died before he finished his final opera, Turandot, from cancer of the throat (he was a heavy smoker). He was buried in his dining room. At the first performance, the conductor (Toscanini) laid down his baton after the death of Liù and announced that Puccini had also died at this point, leaving it unfinished.

Unfortunately, Alfano HAD finished Turandot, and had no idea that Toscanini wasn't going to perform the end of the opera. When he DID finally conduct it with Alfano's ending, he cut the ending. This is the version that is usually performed, though you do get the complete ending performed on occasion.

Bach had his children with two wives, his cousin (first wife) Maria Barbara died in 1720 aged 35 after 7 children between 1708 and 1718 Then he marries Anna Magdalena in 1721 who bore him another 13 between 1723 and1742.

I have been told that Mahler, on macho grounds, stopped his wife from composing and on discovering some of her work after her death said "Oh, what have I done?". I don't know if this story is true.

I think Granados and his family were drowned after the boat in which they were travelling was torpedoed.

Was it Ravel who was killed in a car crash? Or have I got that wrong?

And we all know what happend to that nasty man Lully - hit himself on the foot while "conducting" with a staff and died of gangrene.

Probably not. She married twice after he died, and was noticeably alive on each occasion.

Anton Webern was visiting his daughter-in-law in 1945 and went outside late at night so that he could smoke a cigar without disturbing his grandchildren. He was shot dead by an American soldier.

Claude Vivier was murdered by a rent boy.

The tragic fact about Charles Alkan is that everyone thinks he was crushed to death underneath a bookcase, even though he wasn't.

Wasnt there one composer who shot himself in the foot, and it turned gangrenous and he died ?

Wasn't that Lully beating time with a staff?

Lully's the only gangrenous composer (lol.....) that I know of...

Webern was shot by an American soldier during WWII when he refused to put out the fag he'd popped out a house to smoke...

glad to hear it! The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.


Critics, eh?


I can think of several "composers" who should have been crushed under a bookcase, preferably before composing anything!

Stockhausen for one. Thomas Beecham said he never heard any Stockhausen, but may have stepped in some.

Poulenc was addicted to barbiturates at one point and this may have been a contributory factor to his heart attack, causing his death.

Chausson died after falling off his bicycle. It seems to have been his own silly fault, too!