# How tall were composers?



## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

I stumbled upon this image on the internet and I found it very, very curious:










I never came to think Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner or even Grieg had those heights. I imagined them taller, above all Grieg being Norwegian.

Do you know any other heights of other composers?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Never knew Rachmaninov was 6ft 6in!!!

I understand Kalevi Aho is even taller, but I think some Super-tall individuals are sensitive to this physical trait being pointed out, fair enough. I have a very nice seventeen year old student who's 6'11"......

Prokofiev is an inch taller than me!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sir John Tavener, the English composer of many well-known religious works who died in 2013, had Marfan Syndrome (as did Rachmaninoff). I understand he was quite tall, but I can’t find his actual height.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

People in the past were shorter due nutrition you know...


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

dwarves, midgets and hobbits. But yes, people were much shorter then. If you visit some open-air museum of some old village with original equipment, you will notice how small everything was, the rooms, the beds etc.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

Rachmaninoff probably could've made more money as a professional basketball player.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Or starred as the villain in Bond Films


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Generally, tall enough so their feet reached the ground.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I don't know how accurate this picture is, especially WRT the older composers. But it's a shocker to see Mozart as taller than Beethoven! 

Anyway, Rossini was fatter than any of them and probably could have easily taken most in sumo wrestling.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Glazunov was about as tall as Rachmaninoff (around 6'7").


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I didn't realize Grieg was that short. It probably explains why he wrote mostly miniatures.


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

Leoš Janáček was also short - I don't know his actual height but I remember a picture of him where he is sat at the front of a gathering of teachers and graduates from the organ school in Brno and even though he was seated I could see that he was rather diminutive.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

Tall people get SO tired of the basketball trope. I used to work with a man who was 6'10" tall. He had a business card that read something like this:

Hi. My name is Brad. Yes, I'm tall. Yes, the air is definitely thinner up here. Six feet, ten inches. Size 16 shoes. No, I don't play basketball. It has been nice talking to you.


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

^
^

I never knew that there could be such a thing as Tall Man Syndrome. Can't say I blame him, though.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> Leoš Janáček was also short - I don't know his actual height but I remember a picture of him where he is sat at the front of a gathering of teachers and graduates from the organ school in Brno and even though he was seated I could see that he was rather diminutive.


Incorrect. Janáček was in fact well over six foot tall. At that time, however, Brno was trying to establish itself as a European centre for excellence in basketball, so all the organists they took in over a period of four or five years had to, by obligation, be close to seven feet in height. This also helped them reach all the pedals on the newly designed organ in Brno Cathedral.

See? He's much taller than the lady next to him:









Thus Janacek was in fact tall, but compared to his tall organists was relatively short. This can be seen as early proof of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

This is, by the way, a complete lie. :angel:


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

CnC Bartok said:


> Incorrect. Janáček was in fact well over six foot tall. At that time, however, Brno was trying to establish itself as a European centre for excellence in basketball, so all the organists they took in over a period of four or five years had to, by obligation, be close to seven feet in height. This also helped them reach all the pedals on the newly designed organ in Brno Cathedral.
> 
> See? He's much taller than the lady next to him:
> 
> ...


Or is it just a Quantum state?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Or is it just a Quantum state?


As in height functions in terms of Eigenvalues?


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

CnC Bartok said:


> Incorrect. Janáček was in fact well over six foot tall. At that time, however, Brno was trying to establish itself as a European centre for excellence in basketball, so all the organists they took in over a period of four or five years had to, by obligation, be close to seven feet in height. This also helped them reach all the pedals on the newly designed organ in Brno Cathedral.
> 
> See? He's much taller than the lady next to him:
> 
> ...


You're on form today heh heh...


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Sir John Tavener, the English composer of many well-known religious works who died in 2013, had Marfan Syndrome (as did Rachmaninoff). I understand he was quite tall, but I can't find his actual height.


Tavener was 6 feet 6 inches tall (198 centimeters).


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

The long and short of it - Berg and Webern.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

David Phillips said:


> View attachment 120213
> 
> 
> The long and short of it - Berg and Webern.


Berg was a whole head taller than Webern, wow. Great photo. They can't have been much more than 25 there, no?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

According to Google 38 (Berg) and 40 (Webern).


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Don't know how accurate any of this composers' heights information is, but I can honestly say, no matter how tall I am or _could_ be (even if I were a Goliath at, say, 8 feet plus inches), I know I would _still_ look up to _all_ of these artists. I mean -- Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, Rachmaninoff …. Certainly I'd look up to them. In the same way I look up to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. They are the giants among us.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I've heard Beethoven was a bit taller than 1.55 m (around 1.62, or just a tiny bit shorter than Mozart).

This source, https://slippedisc.com/2015/03/on-brahms-and-bird-****-a-critical-analysis/ , sasy that Brahms was "around 1.70" from the estimate of a friend.

Google says Bach was 5'11'', but does anyone know of good evidence to support (or refute) this claim?'

Also interested in the heights of these composers:

Haydn
Faure
Debussy


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Google says Bach was 5'11'', but does anyone know of good evidence to support (or refute) this claim?


Johann Sebastian Bach's height as recorded by Professor Wilhelm His, Professor of Anatomy at the University Of Leipzig who exhumed the grave in 1894 and measured the skeleton, was 166.8 cm or 5 feet, 5. 7 inches. Bach may have lost height with age, so perhaps 5 feet 7 inches is closer to his maximum adult height. See Volume 1 of Albert Schweitzer's study of Bach.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

CnC Bartok said:


> As in height functions in terms of Eigenvalues?


Yeah, its just a linear transformation in one dimension......

A bit like some Waltzes


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Art Rock said:


> According to Google 38 (Berg) and 40 (Webern).


I was seeing conflicting dates, one source said 1923, another said 1912. I find the latter more believable, but if that was really 1923 then those two had a couple of serious baby faces.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

How tall were composers?Does this mean that all composers are dead?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Also interested in the heights of these composers:
> 
> Haydn
> Faure
> Debussy


 One estimate is that Debussy was 5'9.685" tall (1.77m) or the approximate height of an afternoon fawn. He's evidently worth over 1 million dollars but no longer alive to spend it by about 100 years. Bummer.

https://networthroom.com/case/claude-debussy-net-worth-bio/


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> How tall were composers?Does this mean that all composers are dead?


Only composers of stature.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> How tall were composers?Does this mean that all composers are dead?


How tall was God? Freddy Nietzsche used to wonder every day. Then he would go back to texting the chasm, because he discovered it was the only thing that would always text back.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

MusicSybarite said:


> I stumbled upon this image on the internet and I found it very, very curious:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah we all knew ravel was not tall. But then I always knew he wasa giant in spirit,,which is the only thing that matters.
Great, TRULY great, as in modern times, not *once great long ago*,,,the only thing that...well no my thought was,,,Great composers are not physical, they are spiritual beings, What do you think genius is?

So this idea of height , is not of any interest to me. 
Ravel was spirit.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> One estimate is that Debussy was 5'9.685" tall (1.77m) or the approximate height of an afternoon fawn. He's evidently worth over 1 million dollars but no longer alive to spend it by about 100 years. Bummer.
> 
> https://networthroom.com/case/claude-debussy-net-worth-bio/


Well, if it's on the Internet, it must be true. Luciano Pavarotti weighs 73 kg (161 pounds). Who knew?

https://networthroom.com/case/luciano-pavarotti-net-worth-bio/

Kind regards, :tiphat:

*And* he's both 1.62m and 1.8m tall!

George


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