# Drugs/Alcohol & the Composers



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Were they as bad as their rock and roll peers? Just curious.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modest_Mussorgsky
"While Mussorgsky suffered personally from alcoholism, it was also a behavior pattern considered typical for those of Mussorgsky's generation who wanted to oppose the establishment and protest through extreme forms of behavior."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonie_fantastique
"Leonard Bernstein described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature, and because history suggests Berlioz composed at least a portion of it under the influence of opium."

Chopin also took opium as a way to combat his tuberculosis.

Franz Xaver Richter (1709~1789)
"Kapellmeister Richter. He has now restricted himself very much ; instead of forty bottles of wine a day, he only drinks twenty!" -Mozart, in a letter to his father, (Nov 2, 1778)

Michael Haydn was also described as a lazy drunkard by Leopold Mozart. But it's possible Leopold was exaggerating, born out of his animosity for Michael. Because Leopold at the time (1770s) saw Michael as an obstacle to his son's success in Salzburg; and through his influence as a chief organizer of music at the cathedral, made sure all the commissions are given to his son, not Michael.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modest_Mussorgsky
> "While Mussorgsky suffered personally from alcoholism, it was also a behavior pattern considered typical for those of Mussorgsky's generation who wanted to oppose the establishment and protest through extreme forms of behavior."
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonie_fantastique
> ...


Thank you. It sounds like it's not to the same degree, as I suspected.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Were they as bad as their rock and roll peers? Just curious.


Well the correct analogue is not really composers (they're the equivalent of songwriters) but with classical performers. In my experience they can be pretty bad for drink and drugs, and indeed sex with their groupies/acolytes.


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

Mandryka said:


> Well the correct analogue is not really composers (they're the equivalent of songwriters) but with classical performers. In my experience they can be pretty bad for drink and drugs, and indeed sex with their groupies.


Yes. I can't say I'm too well versed with this aspect of classical life but when controversy/bad behaviour rears its ugly head it is more likely to involve a conductor/performer rather than a composer. I was once told that James Galway thought there were some lively types in the BPO when he was a member but it's hard to tell whether he was being discreet or overplaying what may have gone on - perhaps they liked to party just like anyone else when away from the gaze of Iron Herbie.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

elgars ghost said:


> Yes. I can't say I'm too well versed with this aspect of classical life but when controversy/bad behaviour rears its ugly head it is more likely to involve a conductor/performer rather than a composer. I was once told that James Galway thought there were some lively types in the BPO when he was a member but it's hard to tell whether he was being discreet or overplaying what may have gone on - perhaps they liked to party just like anyone else when away from the gaze of Iron Herbie.


From what I've read from articles on the BPO, books about the big conductors (especially Karajan) and online discussions from ex-members I suspect Galway is underplaying it. There were some big personalities and outspoken sorts in the BPO and these characters had a lot of influence in the late 70s and 80s, in particular. Their clashes with Herbie were inevitable according to some of the more experienced and older BPO members but none of them point to a 'drinking culture' within the orchestra.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I'm guessing that there was a lot of heavy drinking going on with the great composers. I saw in a documentary on the life of Beethoven that he was arrested for drunken and disorderly behavior and he was so disheveled looking that when he he told the police that he was "Beethoven" they wouldn't believe him. I also read somewhere that when Tchaikovsky and Brahms met one another they got along great, not because they liked one another's music, but because they were loved drinking together. Mussorgsky's alcoholism is legendary and very much portrayed in Ilya Repin's portrait/painting of him, and Mussorgsky has a large oeuvre of unfinished projects, some that were completed or edited by others, and Mussorgsky also died young around age 40, probably due to alcoholism. Then there are Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and Sibelius, all heavy drinkers. And Rossini loved his wine enough to say that if he had to choose between wine and women it would "depend on the vintage." 

The great composers were fully human and in a time before depression, anxiety, and substance abuse were fully understood, it was a time when there was no professional help available for alcohol dependency. While the culture of rock-and-roll puts it more in the fore-front because of the counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s (i.e. "sex, drugs and rock-and-roll); the culture of classical music was part and parcel of European folk music which was comprised of religious songs, love songs, and drinking songs; but even if it wasn't as explicit, I wouldn't doubt that as much or more substance abuse was part of the lives of the great composers.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Malcolm Arnold had something of an alcohol problem. Hard to know what was most at play in any given episode, alcohol or his well documented psychiatric issues.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Liszt drank a bottle of cognac a day (and sometimes two bottles of wine) but didn't think he was an alcoholic. His pupils were under no such illusion - a 'confirmed alcoholic', said Felix Weingartner.

There are several accounts of Schubert's 'deplorable and embarrassing conduct while a guest at private functions in respectable family homes'. Even as a teenager he could be a nasty drunk. In later years, according to his friend Schober, 'he let himself go to pieces...frequented the city outskirts [of Vienna] and roamed around in taverns'.

Schumann was an embarrassing drinker long before he became ill. At the Heidelberg carnival in 1830, the young Schumann 'fell down in the street, got tangled up with broken rum bottles and groped around under the skirts of landladies'. Then he went home to smash up his piano.

Sibelius wrote nothing of consequence in the last 30 years of his life, worn out by years of drinking that was heroic even by Finnish standards.

When unwinding at the Petroleum Club in Houston, Texas, Stravinsky exclaimed "My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whisky". In later life, Stravinsky, encouraged by his doctor in L.A., would invariably carry around a flask of his favorite 30-year old Ballantine's whisky from which he would take regular swigs.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I've heard that Max Reger consumed disgusting amounts of beer, which led to his obesity and early death even more effectively than his legendary overworking.

Alexander Glazunov supposedly had a stash of alcohol under his desk at the university and would drink through a long straw during classes.

Jerry Goldsmith also had a drinking problem.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Fabulin said:


> .........Jerry Goldsmith also had a drinking problem.


yep, both of him.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

While driving drunk, Bach got into a head-on car collision that killed his passenger.

Mozart was pronounced legally dead from a heroin overdose, but brought back to life when the ambulance driver gave him two shots of adrenaline to the heart.

Beethoven's wild lifestyle included marriages to Heather Locklear and then Pamela Anderson, the latter of which led to a best-selling porno video.

Oh wait . . . I'm thinking of Mötley Crüe. Never mind.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

What all this shows is how much alcohol and drugs are used by people who don’t have to get up to go to work.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

amfortas said:


> While driving drunk, Bach got into a head-on car collision that killed his passenger.
> 
> Mozart was pronounced legally dead from a heroin overdose, but brought back to life when the ambulance driver gave him two shots of adrenaline to the heart.
> 
> ...


I read a colorful anecdote Nikki Six told about how his heroon dealer beat that crap out of him with a baseball bat and threw his unconcious body in a dumpster. When he woke up, he said the only reason he had the will left to crawl out of the dumpster was to get more heroin.


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

Fabulin said:


> I've heard that Max Reger consumed disgusting amounts of beer, which led to his obesity and early death even more effectively than his legendary overworking.


Reminds me of a comment directed at baseball player Hack Wilson - 'he was built like a beer keg and was not unfamiliar with its contents...'.

I expect the excessive smoking and eating didn't help Reger much either.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> I read a colorful anecdote Nikki Six told about how his heroon dealer beat that crap out of him with a baseball bat and threw his unconcious body in a dumpster. When he woke up, he said the only reason he had the will left to crawl out of the dumpster was to get more heroin.


I miss the good old days.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Well Leonard Bernstein seems to have been: a heavy smoker with a whiskey nearby. Sexaholic for sure. I'd say there are more performers who had a rock icon lifestyle than composers.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

mbhaub said:


> Well Leonard Bernstein seems to have been: a heavy smoker with a whiskey nearby. Sexaholic for sure. I'd say there are more performers who had a rock icon lifestyle than composers.


I'm interested to know how Bernstein had any life outside of music. I mean, he was a conductor, a composer of classical music and for Broadway, an educator, a pianist...He practically recorded the entire standard repertoire with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from the 1950s through the early 1970s for Columbia; and then recorded most of it AGAIN for DG in the late 1970s/1980s with mostly the New York Philharmonic, Vienna, Philharmonic, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras. Apart from hanging out with the Black Panthers, when did he find the time to be an alcoholic and carry on with other "activities"?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Coach G said:


> I'm interested to know how Bernstein had any life outside of music. I mean, he was a conductor, a composer of classical music and for Broadway, an educator, a pianist...He practically recorded the entire standard repertoire with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from the 1950s through the early 1970s for Columbia; and then recorded most of it AGAIN for DG in the late 1970s/1980s with mostly the New York Philharmonic, Vienna, Philharmonic, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras. Apart from hanging out with the Black Panthers, when did he find the time to be an alcoholic and carry on with other "activities"?


I know someone who had sex with Leonard Bernstein in one of his house parties.

As far as time goes, I'm sure he paid someone to organise his social life, clean up after etc.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> Well Leonard Bernstein seems to have been: a heavy smoker with a whiskey nearby. Sexaholic for sure. I'd say there are more performers who had a rock icon lifestyle than composers.


But Bernstein was as much of a performer as a composer, more so IMO. He was a sort of singer songwriter.


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

Mandryka said:


> _I know someone who had sex with Leonard Bernstein in one of his house parties._


Not in front of everyone else, I hope.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Not in front of everyone else, I hope.


I believe that Mick Jagger was present.


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

Mandryka said:


> I believe that Mick Jagger was present.


Ah......................


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Yeah, I guess Bernstein must have had an assistant there to manage his busy schedule, and he probably had domestic help as well, so, probably, Lenny wasn't doing his own dusting and mopping like the rest of us.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

If you want the salacious, titillating details on Lenny, you need this book:









By coincidence and professional connections, I know some of the people mentioned. One good friend worked closely with Bernstein for many years and has told me even wilder stories. It's funny how you grow up when these musical titans are treated with awe and wonder....then you read something like this and realize that they're just human with all their faults, prejudices and kinky behaviors. After I read this, I cannot listen to any of his recordings without thinking about it. I've read hundreds of bios of composers and conductors and I can say unequivocally that no one has been the subject of so much revealing details as Bernstein. I've met his daughter and you'd never know she had such a messed up family life.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> I've heard that Max Reger consumed disgusting amounts of beer, which led to his obesity and early death even more effectively than his legendary overworking.
> 
> Alexander Glazunov supposedly had a stash of alcohol under his desk at the university and would drink through a long straw during classes.
> 
> Jerry Goldsmith also had a drinking problem.


Well,....at least according to Shostakovich's Testimony, which remains a point of contention since its publication.


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)

"Old Raspberry", commonly known as Jack Moeran, was a pioneer in the collecting of British folk music. Greatly influenced by the music of Delius and Vaughan Williams, much of Moeran's output is inspired by nature, and was championed by the leading artists of the day. He was a great friend to Peter Warlock - both enjoyed travelling together to rural public inns to record the singing of the local inhabitants. Moeran and Warlock lived together for a period at Eynsford in Kent, where many tales of nudity, drunkenness and reckless driving originated.

Moeran's life, although spanning a short period of just over fifty years, is an interesting one. Tutored at the Royal College of Music by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and John Ireland, his studies were interrupted by the First World War when Jack was posted to the Western Front. Due to an exploding shell, he sustained a head injury which affected him for the rest of his life. Alcohol also affected Moeran, although it was sometimes questionable as to whether it was the drink or his head injury which was making him stagger.

Moeran in the second part of his life spent much time at Kenmare in Ireland. The rural landscape there provided him with the solitude and inspiration he craved. It was at Kenmare on one stormy night, that Moeran fell off the pier into the mouth of Kenmare River. His body was pulled out the next day. Some speculated suicide, or drunkenness, but the inquest found that he'd had a stroke which had caused him to fall.


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