# One to add to the list of composers who met unusual deaths



## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

I must confess that I found it hard not to laugh when I read this:

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantisek_Kotzwara*


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Um... wow...

I don't even really know what to say to this...


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

It's based on a prostitute's testimony. How reliable do you really think that evidence could be?


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

Hard evidence?


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

elgars ghost said:


> Hard evidence?


Is that a double entendre?


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Ravellian said:


> It's based on a prostitute's testimony. How reliable do you really think that evidence could be?


She was charged with his murder but acquitted. Without modern forensic techniques I suppose it's impossible to say for certain whether she was telling the truth.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Ravellian said:


> It's based on a prostitute's testimony. How reliable do you really think that evidence could be?


I would imagine that the contemporary jury and judge would be even more prejudiced against a prostitute's testimony than this comment. So her evidence must have been pretty convincing.

Moreover what would she have to gain by axphixiating him and leaving him there so she could get caught with his body? Wouldn't he have noticed her popping on the noose as well?


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## Falstaft (Mar 27, 2010)

To quote the X-Files, "You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation."


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

at least he enjoyed it


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Composers are not supposed to visit prostitutes in the first place. They should be seen as upstanding members of the community.:lol:


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Yeah, like Brahms


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Ravellian said:


> It's based on a prostitute's testimony. How reliable do you really think that evidence could be?


That's quite a prejudice you have there


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

I couldn't help but laugh, though I have a morbid sense of humor.


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

He requested a radical method of contraception! Better to be safe than sorry I suppose!


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Ravellian said:


> It's based on a prostitute's testimony. How reliable do you really think that evidence could be?


Well, it would be pretty stupid for a prostitute to randomly murder one of her clients, wouldn't it? It's not great for business, nor is it good for the health (murderers were summarily hanged in these times). My guess is that she didn't do it.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

Somebody who walks in with a story like: "He wanted me to chop it off" has to be believed, because you just can't make up something like that.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Delicious Manager said:


> Well, it would be pretty stupid for a prostitute to randomly murder one of her clients, wouldn't it?


More often, it's the client who murders the prostitute.


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

Perhaps someone might write an opera about it!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

There's another 18th century Czech composer whose name I can't recall offhand who met his death in an even weirder manner. He loved to eat spiders-I kid you not, and thought they were delicious,and apparently died from the toxic effects.


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## Sebastien Melmoth (Apr 14, 2010)

Let's see.

Mahler, Skryabin and Berg all died of streptococcal blood poisoning.

Beethoven, Schubert, Smetana, Chabrier all died of syphilis.

Franck died after being run over by a horse and carriage.

Ravel in an auto accident.

Chausson in a bicycle accident. (Hit a wall.)

Webern was shot by a soldier.

Ulmann, Krasa, Haas, Schulhoff died in concentration camps.

Brahms and Debussy had cancer.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Ravellian said:


> It's based on a prostitute's testimony. How reliable do you really think that evidence could be?


One of the saddest stories was that of prostitute Monica Coghlan. She told the truth but the court didn't believe her.

Tragically she died in a car crash before she saw Archer behind bars for perjury.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> Perhaps someone might write an opera about it!


Do it!!

I could see Berg taking this one on.


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

Sebastien Melmoth said:


> Let's see.
> 
> Mahler, Skryabin and Berg all died of streptococcal blood poisoning.
> 
> ...


John Barnes Chance was electrocuted!


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

What about dying 55 minutes before your worst fear did?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Jean-Baptiste Lully was conducting his music by hitting the floor with a long staff to keep time, but one of the hits stabbed his own foot, which turned gangrenous. He didn't want it amputated because he was also a dancer. He died from the infection. Movie was made about it.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> What about dying 55 minutes before your worst fear did?


How ironic. Poor Prokofiev.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Sebastien Melmoth said:


> Let's see.
> 
> Mahler, Skryabin and Berg all died of streptococcal blood poisoning.
> 
> ...


From what I can gather, the exact cause of Beethoven's death is still a mystery. Ravel's death was not from an auto accident (although he was involved in one, true), but after an apparently botched brain operation. He went into a coma and never fully came out...


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## Sebastien Melmoth (Apr 14, 2010)

Andre said:


> _From what I can gather, the exact cause of Beethoven's death is still a mystery. Ravel's death was not from an auto accident (although he was involved in one, true), but after an apparently botched brain operation. He went into a coma and never fully came out..._


Well, the Beethoven-syphilis theory hasn't been resolved. Seems likely he had it, though. Tchaikovsky, too.

Ah, Ravel. Gershwin also died from the results of primitive brain surgery. How horrible.

Funny about Lully.

Bach's eyes also infected after primitive surgery.


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

> Karl-erik Welin
> OTHER NEWS TO NOTE - DEATHS
> June 02, 1992
> Welin, a Swedish composer and organist, was found dead Sunday in his home on the Spanish island of Mallorca. He was 58. The cause of death was not immediately known. Welin was internationally acclaimed for his avant-garde organ and piano music. His best known works are Renovationes, Manzit, Warum Nicht?, Pereo and A New Map of Hell.


From the Orlando Sentinel.

Reason unknown. I've never found out any more about this interesting Swedish composer. He wrote Solo Per Flauto (superb) and a number of string quartets, which if uncharacteristic, were pleasant to hear.


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

the actor David Caridine died just like Frantisek.


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

I did read once that Charles-Valentin Alkan had met his end by having his bookcase fall on him but this has since been assumed incorrect.


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## Sebastien Melmoth (Apr 14, 2010)

Forgot of course poor Hugo Wolf who went mad with syphilis.

Also Schumann probably had the pox as well.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Granados was torpedoed.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

George Butterworth fell to a sniper in 1916.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Alessandro Stradella (a VERY fine Italian middle Baroque composer if you don't know his music), died in a duel. Stradella was a notorious womaniser. He was sometimes careless and made pregnant the wife of a powerful, rich and (as it turned out) vengeful man who, on discovering of Stradella's daliance, promptly hired the quickest shot in town to kill the composer in a rather one-sided duel.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Berg suffered from an insect-sting induced carbuncle on his back - given their dire financial situation, his wife, rather than involving a doctor, performed an ill-advised home surgery using a pair of scissors. Blood poisoning killed him.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I believe the name of that spider-eating composer was Anton Filtz. I'll stick with pizza.
Apparently,Brahms regularly went to prostitutes. Fine,upstanding citizen.


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

base on popularity, I propose to topten-ed the composers with most unusual deaths.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

jurianbai said:


> base on popularity, I propose to topten-ed the composers with most unusual deaths.


Good idea. Could add to that who was the most sexually perverted composer? Several of them visited hookers, including Santa Claus looking Brahms.


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## Sebastien Melmoth (Apr 14, 2010)

Oh those naughty fellows--Beethoven, Brahms, et alii--who regularly went and got their ashes raked.

Naughty, naughty...


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Good idea. Could add to that who was the most sexually perverted composer? Several of them visited hookers, including Santa Claus looking Brahms.


Do you mean sexually promiscuous? Morton Feldman was famous for running around with hookers until finally settling down with Barbara Monk shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer.


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## Saturnus (Nov 7, 2006)

Wow, now I really must hear something by Kotzwara! 
The request to cut his testicles off added to the fact that he was a virtuoso double bassist (what the hell?) makes his insanity level so high that his music must be awesome. 
There must be recording of the Battle of Prague somewhere. It's not on Naxos or any of the major brands, is anyone here familiar with some Czech label that has it?


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*Julian Scriabin...a mysteryous death...*

Julian drowned in the Dnieper River in Kiev at the age of eleven in a boating accident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Scriabin

Quite sad.

Martin


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> Julian drowned in the Dnieper River in Kiev at the age of eleven in a boating accident.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Scriabin
> 
> ...


Thomas Linley the younger died in a boating accident as well.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

While Spanish composer Enrique Granados also had a watery death when the ferry _Sussex_ was torpedoed by a German U-Boat in the English Channel on 24 March 1916.


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

I read that Mieczyslaw Karlowicz was killed in an avalanche.


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## zoziejemaar (Dec 15, 2010)

Here is what Wikipedia says about the death of Francesco Geminiani:

"In 1761, on one of his sojourns in Dublin, a servant robbed him of a musical manuscript on which he had bestowed much time and labour. His vexation at this loss is said to have hastened his death."

And here's the death of Johann Schobert:

"Schobert died in Paris, along with his wife, one of their children, a maidservant and four acquaintances, after insisting that certain poisonous mushrooms were edible." 

Eh...


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Oops. Edited due to repetition. I missed a few pages of the thread...


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Composers are not supposed to visit prostitutes in the first place. They should be seen as upstanding members of the community.:lol:


It sounds as if he was fairly upstanding==at least until the end.!


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2012)

What did the leper say to the prostitute?


Keep the tip!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> Granados was torpedoed.


Was he in a boat at the time?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

It looks like I've come in too late to mention Alkan ...


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Franz Liszt's anus exploded, jettisoning him to the Moon, where, owing to a lack of breathable atmosphere, he expired. Some say that on clear nights, you can still see his perfectly preserved corpse floating around in a variety of whimsical poses. Legend also has it that if you visit his home on the 31st of July you can hear a "bang!" and a blood curdling scream.

What? Why are you looking at me like that?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> Franz Liszt's anus exploded, jettisoning him to the Moon, where, owing to a lack of breathable atmosphere, he expired. Some say that on clear nights, you can still see his perfectly preserved corpse floating around in a variety of whimsical poses. Legend also has it that if you visit his home on the 31st of July you can hear a "bang!" and a blood curdling scream.
> 
> What? Why are you looking at me like that?


We're you there when it happened?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

For your own sake, do not ask that information, child.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

A composer who died strangely was Alessandro Stradella in the 17th century. He was murdered at about 36 years of age because he had earlier murdered somebody else. Also, is the story of Lully and the gangrene the reason for his death (his foot was hit by his conducting pole) or is this merely apocryphal?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> A composer who died strangely was Alessandro Stradella in the 17th century. He was murdered at about 36 years of age because he had earlier murdered somebody else. Also, is the story of Lully and the gangrene the reason for his death (his foot was hit by his conducting pole) or is this merely apocryphal?


Apparently, Lully asked for his foot not to be cut off when it was suffering from gangrene. That's how he died. If his foot was cut off, he would have lived for longer.


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2012)

I shrink with horror at the thought of that foot being removed in the era of zero anaesthetic. How DID they cope? I guess Lully figured there WAS a fate worse than death!!

Also, from my post above regarding Alessandro Stradella. He was murdered at 37 years of age because he ran off with another man's wife. So, cuckoldry could be fatal!!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> I shrink with horror at the thought of that foot being removed in the era of zero anaesthetic. How DID they cope? I guess Lully figured there WAS a fate worse than death!!


If you were lucky you got some incredibly strong liquor...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Fsharpmajor said:


> I must confess that I found it hard not to laugh when I read this:
> 
> *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantisek_Kotzwara*


But it is not that 'exotic' a way to go....


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Air said:


> Do you mean sexually promiscuous? Morton Feldman was famous for running around with hookers until finally settling down with Barbara Monk shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer.


Lenny Bernstein put it about a bit too.


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