# Mentally Unstable Composers



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

As many of you all know, I study Russian composers.  I like to go on Google Books and read excerpts about various composers from critiques and biographies. Well, I found this one book where I saw this quote:

"Arensky's a man of enormous talent, but there is something strange, unstable, unhealthily nervous and slightly, as it were, not quite normal mentally." - Tchaikovsky

That was quite surprising. :lol: Now this has opened up to me a huge mystery which will take time for me to solve: what evidence is there for this statement by Tchaikovsky, and how did he come to be that way? I would never call Arensky's music "insane" (I use that term for Prokofiev almost exclusively, and jokingly), but I would say some of his works do have a loss of touch with reality, which I can go into more detail later.

Who are some other composers that were known to be "unstable" or "not quite normal mentally"? Do you like what they made? Did it make any difference in their compositions you think?


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Schumann spent the last two years of his life in an insane asylum.
Do I like what he wrote? Yes, indeed!
Did it make any difference in what he wrote? Probably. I don't think it in any way made them inferior to his other works, though (as many would lead you to believe).


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Klavierspieler said:


> Did it make any difference in what he wrote? Probably. I don't think it in any way made them inferior to his other works, though (as many would lead you to believe).


What about _superior?_ Maybe in a psychotic episode one could come up with unusually brilliant ideas.

Oh, and post anything you like by these composers, I'd like to hear them.


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Here are a couple of samples of Schumann's late style:


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I'm not sure if he was genuinely unstable, but Karlheinz Stockhausen certainly was a space cadet, a genuinely strange man among 20th Century composers.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Austrian composer Hans Rott (do check out his only symphony if you like Bruckner or Mahler!): "Rott's mind snapped in October 1880, whilst on a train journey. He was reported to have threatened another passenger with a revolver, claiming that Brahms had filled the train with dynamite. Rott was committed to a mental hospital in 1881, where despite a brief recovery, he sank into depression. By the end of 1883 a diagnosis recorded 'hallucinatory insanity, persecution mania-recovery no longer to be expected.' He died of tuberculosis in 1884, aged only 25. "


----------



## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> Austrian composer Hans Rott (do check out his only symphony if you like Bruckner or Mahler!): "Rott's mind snapped in October 1880, whilst on a train journey. He was reported to have threatened another passenger with a revolver, claiming that Brahms had filled the train with dynamite. Rott was committed to a mental hospital in 1881, where despite a brief recovery, he sank into depression. By the end of 1883 a diagnosis recorded 'hallucinatory insanity, persecution mania-recovery no longer to be expected.' He died of tuberculosis in 1884, aged only 25. "


18 - 25 is the prime age at which most people get schizophrenia, shame sounds like he had great potential. Madness and genius are two sides of the same coin. I think it's the price you pay for being different your wiring is a little faulty perhaps.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Thanks to the effects of syphilis the minds of Bedrich Smetana, Hugo Wolf and Gaetano Donizetti caved in leading to premature death while institutionalised. Smetana also had to put up with an incessant whistling in his ear which probably hastened his decline. There were signs that Moussorgsky's dipsomania was leading him to a mental breakdown but the drinking killed him anyway. That famous Ilya Repin portrait showing the hospitalised composer looking hopeless in his dressing gown during his final days is heartbreaking.


----------



## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Scriabin! Or was that just a Wagnerian case of ego?

BurningDesire mentioned Stockhausen, who did come to believe that he was born inside Sirius and educated there.


----------



## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Lenfer said:


> 18 - 25 is the prime age at which most people get schizophrenia


That is a little alarming 

Most composers seem a bit unbalanced to be honest. In fact to list composers who are genuinely _"normal"_ might be easier. Bach, Haydn and Mendelssohn come to mind.


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Ramako said:


> That is a little alarming for me (18).
> 
> Most composers seem a little unbalanced to be honest. In fact to list composers who are _"normal"_ might be easier. Bach, Haydn and Mendelssohn come to mind.


My third alternate personality says don't worry. (help, he's trying to kill me!)


----------



## Nadia (Jul 29, 2012)

Composers are a very special case. They live in two words, or how we say it, they sit on two chairs at the same time. One is a very abstract and unreal fantasy world of their thoughts and pieces that have not been written yet. One is a very real and brutal outside world. The difference between the two of them makes every composer psychologically shifted from the normal. Some are more "shifted" than the other. It's maybe just their enormous creativity shining out of them in unusual ways, or the Slavic genes going mad. (In case of Arensky, I think that's the best explination, even Tchaikovsky was known for his neurosis and frequent depressions.)


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> Scriabin! Or was that just a Wagnerian case of ego?
> 
> BurningDesire mentioned Stockhausen, who did come to believe that he was born inside Sirius and educated there.


It's true! Stockhausen _IS_ an alien!


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Ramako said:


> That is a little alarming
> 
> Most composers seem a bit unbalanced to be honest. In fact to list composers who are genuinely _"normal"_ might be easier. Bach, Haydn and Mendelssohn come to mind.


We composers are pretty crazy  *cackles maniacally as she pounds on the keys of her piano* MORE DISSONANCE!


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> It's true! Stockhausen _IS_ an alien!


an alien with very interesting ideas about the physics of sound, theatrics in music, spacial elements in composition, and a pretty amazing imagination :3 Seriously, say what you will about the Helicopter String Quartet, but that takes one hell of an imagination. (personally, I think its pretty cool, if completely insane XD).


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

There is a certain Dr David Wright who is apparently a musician/composer who believes the character of a composer says a lot about (the quality of) his music. He wrote a lot of essays on composers and music.

He uses facts from various sources, but still his essays are mostly about his opinions of a composer. I think they are chaotic, biased and distorted to put composers he doesn't like in a bad light.

http://www.wrightmusic.net/

Fans of Schubert, Scriabin, Chopin, Elgar, Britten among others should be warned, because his essays are almost insulting.

From what I've read Scriabin was quite a character and I guess somewhat unstable, but I don't believe he was seriously mentally ill, otherwise he wouldn't be able to compose such great music.

When I read about him he really cracks me up sometimes. Like how he tried to walk on water, believing he was the messiah (I'm not sure where I read that).

Check out this quote by Arthur Rubinstein:
"Who is your favourite composer?" he (Scriabin) asked with the condescending smile of the great master who knows the answer. When I answered without hesitation, "Brahms", he banged his fist on the table. "What, what?" he screamed. "How can you like this terrible composer and me at the same time? When I was your age I was a Chopinist, later I became a Wagnerite, but now I can only be a Scriabinist!" And, quite enraged, he took his hat and ran out of the café, leaving me stunned by this scene and with the bill to pay.

- Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years

Personally, I have no trouble seperating the person from the music and there's no doubt in my mind that Scriabin is one of the greatest composers.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

DeepR said:


> Fans of Schubert, Scriabin, Chopin, Elgar, Britten among others should be warned, because his essays are almost insulting.


I know Elgar must have had a problem - he was a Wolverhampton Wanderers supporter.


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> We composers are pretty crazy  *cackles maniacally as she pounds on the keys of her piano* MORE DISSONANCE!


are you a female?  I believed that you were a guy. :lol:


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

DeepR said:


> From what I've read Scriabin was quite a character and I guess somewhat unstable, but I don't believe he was seriously mentally ill, otherwise he wouldn't be able to compose such great music.


It is hard to tell with Scriabin. Depending on the definition one has of insane, he may or may not have been. He was a mysticist, and highly superstitious. He invented the "mystic chord" which he intended to end the world with. Scriabin also thought he was God, and composed several pieces about this struggle (within himself) to find the inner divine power (for ex. Symphony No. 3 "Divine Poem"). He was supposedly creating such a work at the time of his death that if performed he believed would have brought about the end of the world (It was not completed consequently because of his death, so the end of the world has not yet happened. ).

So, telling by those facts, you could say he was insane. *Or*, you could say he was excruciatingly deliberate, calculating, and passionately radical about his beliefs. Is it insane to be passionate about something you're determined is true, or is it insane to be hold _insane beliefs?_

In my honest personal opinion, Scriabin was radical to the point of monomania (obsession over one thing/belief) which can be defined as a kind of abnormal psychosis. Sometimes, insane people are very... deliberate.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

aleazk said:


> are you a female?  I believed that you were a guy. :lol:


Yes I am ;D I try not to make assumptions like that online.


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Yes I am ;D I try not to make assumptions like that online.


sorry, yes, you are right.


----------



## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

Beethoven, He was biopolar.
But it was part of his genius.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Had Skryabin lived longer I could imagine him eventually losing the plot altogether. Possibly also with Webern who at the time of his death appeared to be slowly but surely painting himself into a 12-tone corner and was finding composition increasingly difficult - even allowing for his woes during WWII when his works were suppressed by the Nazis and a lot of his allies dead, in exile or socially and professionally out of circulation. I can't help wondering if he'd have driven himself mad had he obstinately refused to compose within any other framework, even if his own personal circumstances improved while his homeland regained some kind of stability.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

jani said:


> Beethoven, He was biopolar.
> But it was part of his genius.


Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't really think he was bipolar. Being emotional, or passionate, or getting depressed doesn't make a person bi-polar or unstable.


----------



## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't really think he was bipolar. Being emotional, or passionate, or getting depressed doesn't make a person bi-polar or unstable.


Yeah, everything slightly weird is given a name nowadays


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

You gotta have a laugh!


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Obsessive, psychotic, delusional, fantast, total ego maniac, self-messianism (is that even a word? ) ... Scriabin may have had a bit (or a lot) of everything, but in the end I do think he wanted to achieve something positive for the world with his music.


----------



## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't really think he was bipolar. Being emotional, or passionate, or getting depressed doesn't make a person bi-polar or unstable.


Well do normal people throw bad eggs to people?
Do they spit the food to ohers face if they don't like it?
I should have added that some people suspected that he was bi-polar.


----------



## SAKO (Jul 27, 2012)

If you climb on a bus containing the local lunatic, you don't choose to sit down next to him, nor tell him how to run his life.

Madness is a simple way to allow you to do the things you want to do without the ******* trying to grind you down.

What's better? Straight music in a jacket or great music in a straight jacket?


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Re Arensky I know he was an alcoholic, and often alcoholics use alcohol to 'treat' depression. Not deliberately but as the saying goes 'he turned to the bottle' (for comfort). So that may have been an issue with Arensky. Another one like that I can think of was Sibelius. A very depressed man, struggled with it throughout his life, and 'the bottle' was like a consolation of sorts.

I think basically many composers are outsiders, so they will be labelled as wierd or stuff like that by the rest of 'genteel' society. There were 'middle class' composers whose life did not have much trouble though - eg. Mendelssohn - but I know of more composers with various 'issues' whether serious or not, permanent or temporary.

Eg. here are some obvious ones I can think of, apart from those mentioned above:
Depression - Rachmaninov, Shostakovich (Rachmaninov was pretty 'smart' in terms of getting psychological treatment and managing his depression, which is amazing since then, early 1900's, the science of psychology was in its infancy...he dedicated his second piano concerto to a psychologist/psychiatrist who successfully treated him)
Nervous breakdown (temporary) - Bruckner, and also I think Verdi when his wife and child died tragically
Alcoholic - Sibelus as mentioned, Mussorgsky, Barraque
Extremely reclusive/shy - Alkan
Plain wierd (or put more nicely 'eccentric') - Satie (the famous quote by his sister that goes something like 'my brother is not entirely normal'), Percy Grainger

...and that's just off the top of my head. But basically, psychological illness hits often in bad circumstances (eg. death of a loved one or losing your job, which happened to some of these guys), or political persecution can be a big issue (eg. Shostakovich), or it can be cultural (eg. Russians consume a huge amount of alcohol, always have, always will...and so do Scandinavians, I think...also related to the harsh winters there), and also genetic and lifestyle factors. It's complex.


----------



## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Has nobody mentioned Berlioz yet?

From wiki:



> During his stay in Italy, he received a letter from the mother of his fiancée informing him that she had called off their engagement. Instead her daughter was to marry Camille Pleyel (son of Ignaz Pleyel), a rich piano manufacturer. Enraged, Berlioz decided to return to Paris and take revenge on Pleyel, his fiancée, and her mother by killing all three of them. He created an elaborate plan, going so far as to purchase a dress, wig and hat with a veil (with which he was to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain entry to their home).[31] He even stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols from the Academy to kill them with, saving a single shot for himself.[31] Planning out his action with great care, Berlioz purchased phials of strychnine and laudanum[31] to use as poisons in the event of a pistol jamming.
> 
> Despite this careful planning, Berlioz failed to carry through with the plot. By the time he had reached Genoa, he realised he left his disguise in the side pocket of a carriage during his journey. After arriving in Nice (at that time, part of Italy), he reconsidered the entire plan, deciding it to be inappropriate and foolish.


Add to this his bizarre marriage to Harriet Smithson and other signs of obsession makes him pretty loopy. I am quite a fan!

Also, Alkan always makes me chuckle. There are two surviving photos of him, one of them with him facing the opposite direction.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

aleazk said:


> sorry, yes, you are right.


Its no problem ^_^ Don't sweat it.


----------



## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> You gotta have a laugh!


John Cage is the only sane composer!


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> You gotta have a laugh!


Cage wasn't crazy. He was a Buddhist X3


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I'm mentally unstable, but it's not balanced with being a great composer.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

aleazk said:


> I'm mentally unstable, but it's not balanced with being a great composer.


awwwww. Would you like a hug? ^^


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Klavierspieler said:


> Schumann spent the last two years of his life in an insane asylum.
> Do I like what he wrote? Yes, indeed!
> Did it make any difference in what he wrote? Probably. I don't think it in any way made them inferior to his other works, though (as many would lead you to believe).


Its probably debatable but based on what I've read, the argument that Schumann's illness effected the quality of his music has kind of been debunked (ages ago, in the 1980's I think). & even the exact nature of his illness is debated, there isn't a clear 'diagnosis.'

Brahms and Joachim hid away Schumann's violin concerto as they thought it would be seen as the ramblings of a madman, but though probably well intentioned, they have been proven wrong by history. Yehudi Menuhin was an advocate of this work as equal to any other work in the genre of that time, and he started playing it like in about the 1950's.

I feel that Schumann changed stylistic directions quite a bit, I'm no 'expert' on his music, I just think he's quite diverse. But so what? Other 'chameleon' composers like STravinsky had no psychological issues, but they still changed their directions/styles, which I think can be good, a thing showing flexibility and testing of boundaries in art/music. Its got nothing to do with things like schizophrenia.

But in the case of Smetana, his illness (again, I think its unclear what he was suffering from), it did effect the quality of his work. His second string quartet is very sad to listen to, knowing the circumstances of its composition. Smetana was barely able to concentrate for a few minutes, let alone long streches of time. Thus, its quite a short work, and has almost a Webernian conciseness and is very fragmented. Schoenberg admired this work, but for all the wrong reasons in a way. Its a sad picture of a man losing his mind. So I tend not to listen to it, its no walk in the park.


----------



## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

I actually consider metal singers mentally unstable lol

It is really hard to tag a Classic composer that way!


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> awwwww. Would you like a hug? ^^


I will ask to my second alternate personality.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Also, Gesualdo should be included, he was probably psychotic, and did kill his wife in paranoia.

As I said I was going to before:





So far in my studies, I've found that the Dream was a special subject to Arensky. He wrote an Opera called "Dream on the Volga" (A very strange subject actually, if you would look up the plot) which took him many years to complete but when it was finally premiered astounded everyone, particularly Tchaikovsky. He also wrote other works too based on the dream, for example, from his Op. 17, a Romance for voice and piano using the poem "The Dream" by Pushkin (it's a _wonderful _poem!), but the one I post above is perhaps the most personal. It's not his last work, but one of them, and seems to go in a form: the dream appears like reality, is dashed for a time, but yet returns to exist as a spirit of hope.

I may be "seeing into things" but I think Arensky was an idealist of a special sort. Perhaps he was holding onto some secret dream all his life, and perhaps it was never fulfilled, but he held onto it anyways. _Could _be the reason for his alcoholism. Not letting go can and being out of touch with reality can lead people to believe/perceive things that they normally wouldn't have, perhaps? Shows something interesting about his character though. All the Russians seems to have very unusual, individual characters.


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Also, Gesualdo should be included, he was probably psychotic, and did kill his wife in paranoia.


Well, actually, his wife cheated him blatantly :lol:


----------



## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

Shostakovich had some weird problems (OCD and anxiety issues): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shostakovich#Personality


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterium_%28Scriabin%29

Just wanted to add this to Scriabin's case. You'll see what I mean.


----------



## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

crmoorhead said:


> Has nobody mentioned Berlioz yet?


Dearly as I love Berlioz's music, he was somewhat prone to, um, embellishment when recording biographical details. The (hugely entertaining) _Memoirs_ was evidently written with an eye to posterity. Mendelssohn said of him that 'with all his efforts to go stark mad, he never once succeeds'. Hilarious, but also half-true.


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterium_%28Scriabin%29
> 
> Just wanted to add this to Scriabin's case. You'll see what I mean.


He just had an enormous passion, ambition and imagination


----------



## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Tchaikovsky and Arensky , takes one to know one! LOL

Alexi Stanchinsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Stanchinsky drowned himself at 26. His Piano Sonata in E Flat Minor is very good. 




IMSLP: http://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_in_E-flat_minor_(Stanchinsky,_Aleksey)


----------

