# classical composer and mental illness



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Ockay sometime someone is a bit odd like Satie ,but what about the most insane classical composer phenom.Like if i told per se who had dementia or another mental illness.

Among classical composer who where geneous but mentally ill.
Im asking you this because i bbeleive dementia can be a vector of creation, like depression and so on.

If someone can tell some fameous case among composer...
*This post is made in all seriousness and not attacking any composer reputation*.

I decided to post after seeing a movie on a classical composer that got to a point were he was strap to a sanity chair in is last days.

:tiphat:


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

The language you used in regards to mental health should be reconsidered. Some, including me, may find it offensive.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Ockay it's done Selby, im sorry if i were offensive i did not acknowledge i where in the instance.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

Tchaikovsky was a great composer but he was suicidal with other mental problems.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Just to follow-up, deprofundis:

"Psychopath" - Outdated; Anti-Social Personality Disorder is what you are looking for, and, frankly, I don't like that language either.

"Demented" - Dementia is a genuine problem but if feels like it is being used in a derogatory way, 'demented' is an expression that should never be used.

"Plain crazy" - Nope. Not even a real thing. Mental health is a spectrum. Everyone has mental health and everyone's mental health oscillates over time. Treating mental health in a dichotomist fashion perpetuates a hurtful understanding of it; there is not sane/insane, normal/crazy, there is mental health. Today I am well. Tomorrow, well, I'll probably be well again, but, who knows?

"Mentally disturbed" - I'm a mental health profession and I don't even know what this means, but I know I don't like it.

This may be nitpicky, but de-stigmatization of mental health is something I've devoted a lot of time and energy to. I think we can strive for better language.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

sorry for not being over the top p.c each time i post i offend a group of peoples or whatever


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## Tricky Fish (Aug 11, 2014)

I can understand that the OP's language would offend some. But it could be an interesting question if addressed appropriately.

My personal view is that great composers, like any great artist, need to wallow in the human condition and its emotional turmoil to create great art. It's a life choice that would take a toll and would result in significant mental health "areas for development" (this is the best PC language I could come up with at short notice).

I can't offer any specific examples, but I'd be interested to hear about great composer's struggles with mental health.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Hans Rott is a famous case. From wikipedia: 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.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Robert Schumann attempted suicide and died in a mental asylum. He has been seen by Kay Redfield Jamison as having had bipolar disorder, but others think that in fact his mental problems were the result of syphilis. Jamison's book *Touched with Fire* in my opinion does people with bipolar disorder a disservice by suggesting that it is associated with special creativity - sometimes it may be, but there are also very many 'ordinary' sufferers and I think this sort of romanticism doesn't help deal with the real medical issues. She gives a list of artists from the past who she thinks had bipolar disorder, but in truth, there just isn't the evidence, and a lot of her choices are improbable or at best arguable.

Composers and gifted people generally are sensitive, and may feel mental traumas more acutely. In the ancient world 'madness' was associated with inspiration and divine talents. But the vast majority of musicians and composers are not mentally ill. The subject is a minefield - a legitimate source of discussion, but not unless it can be treated dispassionately, without flippancy or stigmatisation.


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## AnotherSpin (Apr 9, 2015)

I do not think anyone who has total and complete mental order would compose anything worth listening.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

AnotherSpin said:


> I do not think anyone who has total and complete mental order would compose anything worth listening.


I disagree & think it is a hangover from Romanticism; there are many composers, such as Bach & Handel, who don't appear to have had any such problems.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I think he meant that someone who is seriously mentally ill could not compose something worth listening to. I don't know, it probably depends on the type and severity of the condition.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Exactly. One could argue that the depression that some artists suffered from - such as Beethoven, or the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins - may have led to more profound works of art; or that it inhibited them from fulfilling their potential in other ways.

It all depends. 
And the same thing could be said about life circumstances other than mental illness.

(*You're right, DeepR - I think AnotherSpin meant to say 'mental *dis*order'.)


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

It seems creativity arises from conflict. Perhaps the greatest works of art are the inevitable failure of agreement at the cross of opposing forces working together. One would guess internal conflicts could be transmuted into musical conflicts; for that you only need to bring me the treasure of the leprechaun, a long bone freshly stolen from the grave of an old man, three and exactly three tears from a dying mother, a piece of paper in which you have written your deepest desires and the telephone number of your psychiatrist.


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## AnotherSpin (Apr 9, 2015)

I also tend to doubt anyone who has total and complete mental order would have time and disposition for listening music.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

From what I've read, Alexandr Scriabin was probably experiencing psychosis towards the end of his life. If you return to his later opera with this in mind it could add to your appreciation of those wonderful works. Many have speculated that Wolfy Mozart would meet criteria for an affective disorder, probably Bipolar. His consistent and efficient output could be understood in the context of mania; or, you know, divine intervention  I know that I feel like God is speaking to me when I listen to his Fantasia in D minor.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Selby said:


> From what I've read, Alexandr Scriabin was probably experiencing psychosis towards the end of his life. If you return to his later opera with this in mind it could add to your appreciation of those wonderful works. Many have speculated that Wolfy Mozart would meet criteria for an affective disorder, probably Bipolar. His consistent and efficient output could be understood in the context of mania; or, you know, divine intervention  I know that I feel like God is speaking to me when I listen to his Fantasia in D minor.


Wolfy Mozart? After your taking the OP to task for his apparent insensitivity to Mental Illness, and then piling on after the OP offered an apology, could you at least be a little more respectful towards one of the Greatest Composers?
btw, I am a Physician, and I think that your conjecture about Mozart and Mania isn't supportable.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

^ hmmm. I just went back and re- read those posts. It sounded to me that the op was asking why the post may be considered offensive, which is why I followed up. If you want to read this as "piling it on," so be it. 

I don't see how what I wrote could be interpreted as my intending offense to Mozart. It would imply that there is 'something wrong ' with having a mood disorder, a conjecture I don't accept. In fact, I was implying that Mozart music is so good, so much of it is so good, exceedingly good, dumbfoundingly good, that the only explanation may be that God was speaking through him; The Prophet Mozart. But again, so be it.

I was attempting to participate in the way the thread is intended: what composers may have had mental health problems and how might that have affected their artistry. 

As a physician why do you believe that the theory (which is not mine by the way, to clarify) that Mozart may have experienced mania doesn't hold salt? I'm genuinely curious.*

Regards


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Tchaikovsky comes to mind as not being particularly mentally healthy. Yet he composed masterpieces.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

And just what is mental health?? In most cases it is either personal opinion or comparing the person to a societal average. It isn't as if we can usually run a series of blood tests, MRIs or the like to diagnose them. How many so-called conditions which have appeared in older editions of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) have been removed as being inappropriate? I would cite Tchaikovsky as being a classical case where many of his emotional problems were caused by living in a time and place where aspects of his personality were not understood and so unacceptable.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Highly creative people, people motivated by unique personal visions, whatever their innate emotional constitution, are by definition living in a world different from the one that surrounds them. The problem of living in a world that expects you to view things "normally," when to you there's not much normal about it, is inconceivable to others not so motivated. It can make you crazy (so to speak) even if you are not mentally ill.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Thought the better of that...


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

KenOC said:


> And how many such problems arise in people in parallel (but different) situations today? There are many views, opinions, and behaviors which we find ABSOLUTELY unacceptable that are, historically, norms.


I am not sure what point you are making here? All the past norms that I can think of that are now unacceptable represent increasing acceptance of equality and individuality and could therefore be described as an evolution of social consciousness and understanding. Of course there will always be people who fight against any change that challenges their restricted world view but I am not sure how relevant that is to the discussion.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Selby said:


> From what I've read, Alexandr Scriabin was probably experiencing psychosis towards the end of his life. If you return to his later opera with this in mind it could add to your appreciation of those wonderful works.


I was confused for a moment. Actually he did leave behind some sketches for an opera.  "Keistut and Birute", but like "Mysterium" it was never made into a work, but "realized" by composer Alexander Nemtin. 
As for Scriabin having psychosis, we'll never know I guess. Maybe his creative visions drove him sort of crazy, like Woodduck described, but he was a very competent composer until the end.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

DeepR said:


> As for Scriabin having psychosis, we'll never know I guess. Maybe his creative visions drove him sort of crazy, like Woodduck


Let's not be ridiculous here. Sure, Scriabin was a bit eccentric, but would never have debated about Mahler with Mahlerian.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^I forgive you your slanderous omission (just this once, however) because you're so cute.

ut:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mtmailey said:


> Tchaikovsky was a great composer but he was suicidal with other mental problems.


There is no evidence that Tchaikovsky ever attempted suicide or had any serious suicidal thoughts. I don't think getting into a funk and standing in cold water in order to catch a cold qualifies.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Rachmaninoff seems to have gone through a serious bout of depression following the disastrous premier of his First Symphony.


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

EdwardBast said:


> Rachmaninoff seems to have gone through a serious bout of depression following the disastrous premier of his First Symphony.


Probably not helped when the premiere is being conducted by a tanked-up Glazunov*.

(*allegedly)


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

Mental illness is not just confined to artistic folk - the guy on the checkout in your local supermarket might be suffering from depression. Certainly, there is a high proportion of people who are highly intelligent and compose, write books and paint who suffer from all forms of mental illness, but they are also people who have much time on their hands and the luxury to deliberate on the meaning of their existence or whatever the latest fad is.

I heard an interesting fact that some years ago people of an artistic persuasion didn't visit a 'shrink' in case they unravelled what made up that person, and took away the essence of what made up that troubled and tortured soul who could create such genius. I guess we all have a bad day, but then again most of us aren't geniuses.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> Probably not helped when the premiere is being conducted by a tanked-up Glazunov*.
> 
> (*allegedly)


*Gives you the Glazunov scold in silence*

ANYHOW....

A lot of the Russian composers had undiagnosed mental illness. Depression was diagnosed for several composers, including Rachmaninoff, and others had bouts of depression that weren't diagnosed (but accounts suggest as such) but there were other types of disorders. Scriabin probably had Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Arensky had Anxiety Disorder (which was diagnosed) and possibly OCD that at one point really hurt him, but he somehow managed it (with alcohol). Considering a number of the Russian composers were alcoholics, mental illness may have been a factor for many of them, _but not necessarily._ Tchaikovsky no doubt had depression, but really in the long scheme, he was more "sane" than a lot of his colleagues. Liadov had ADD I'm pretty sure. There's just too much evidence that suggests he had extreme trouble with focus/attention span. A lot of the Russians had accounts of getting the "nervous illness" which was fever/headache and all that related to a panic attack or similar. Quite funny actually, because Dostoevsky attests to this idea that Russians could get "feverishly nervous" or something wild-eyed about them. Why this is the case, I have no clue.

I think it not surprising that many artists can have mental illness. Art attracts sensitive people, and sensitive people are more susceptible to trauma and the like, and thus illness. Art doesn't _cause_ the mental illness, that's for sure lol. Basically all the Russian composers were sensitive people, and some hypersensitive.


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## Baregrass (Feb 16, 2015)

If any classical composer could be said to have had Attention Deficit Disorder it has to be Vivaldi. Paganini was another case. Who knows what was wrong with him besides a severe case of syphilis. Beethoven is thought by some to have been bipolar. But, enduring numerable bouts of illness and going deaf might knock anyone off center a bit.

One more thing. A suggestion Selby. Maybe the OP did offend you. As a professional might it be better, even though most of us use common terms to describe personality types, one might say "here are the clinically accepted terms used in the mental health field." By the way, I saw nothing offensive in the OP's words. He was curious and expressed it the best he could.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

One thing to consider as well.... Not all mental illnesses are chronic . Someone may go through a single bout or two of depression in distinct spaces of time, or have a nervous breakdown after being previously well. So in some cases, there may be a correlation but not causation


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Dim7 said:


> Let's not be ridiculous here. Sure, Scriabin was a bit eccentric, but would never have debated about Mahler with Mahlerian.


Would any sane person attempt that ?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Polyphemus said:


> Would any sane person attempt that ?


Yes. I am sane.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Polyphemus said:


> Would any sane person attempt that ?


I was sane before I did it.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I was sane before I did it.


Never come between a Nazgul and its prey.

I think Mahlerian likes Mahler almost as much I like Maria. _;D_


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