# for you, which composer has the most interesting biography???



## Tarneem

for me Beethoven's biography is super interesting. His childhood was challenging, from the start of his career he showed a rebellious spirit, he challenged fate by continuing composing even though he gradually became deaf, and last but not least, the tragedy between him and his nephew truly does break my heart.


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## mbhaub

Not my favorite composer by any stretch, but Franz Liszt's bio is utterly amazing. From prodigy, seducer of every woman around, to a conductor of very progressive ideas, on to entering a religious order. It's fascinating. And the list of other great musicians he knew and worked with is astonishing. Alan Walker's 3-volume biography is worth every cent. Anyone who really wants to understand 19th c Romanticism must read it.


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## Tarneem

mbhaub said:


> Not my favorite composer by any stretch, but Franz Liszt's bio is utterly amazing. From prodigy, seducer of every woman around, to a conductor of very progressive ideas, on to entering a religious order. It's fascinating. And the list of other great musicians he knew and worked with is astonishing. Alan Walker's 3-volume biography is worth every cent. Anyone who really wants to understand 19th c Romanticism must read it.




It is fair to say that Liszt is the first rockstar!


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## BalalaikaBoy

I don't remember the exact details (it was from a college lecture series called "The Life and Operas of Giuseppe Verdi"), but when Verdi was a young boy, he tripped and fell while practicing being an alter boy (or something like that. something to do with church). The priest said something disparaging, so he responded "may God strike you down with a lightning bolt!" Some time later, that priest died...from being struck by a lightning bolt.

By most accounts, the real Giuseppe Verdi was every bit as stormy, dramatic and anguished as most of his operas.


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## BBSVK

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I don't remember the exact details (it was from a college lecture series called "The Life and Operas of Giuseppe Verdi"), but when Verdi was a young boy, he tripped and fell while practicing being an alter boy (or something like that. something to do with church). The priest said something disparaging, so he responded "may God strike you down with a lightning bolt!" Some time later, that priest died...from being struck by a lightning bolt.
> 
> By most accounts, the real Giuseppe Verdi was every bit as stormy, dramatic and anguished as most of his operas.


I know this story as even more interesting ! It was depicted in the famous Italian TV series The life of Verdi. Maybe some elements were fictional - who knows ?

So on TV, Verdi is serving as an altar boy during the church service. He is fascinated by the organ music and pays little attention to his task. The priest shouts at him to pay attention. Verdi cries out "may God strike you down with a lightning bolt!".

cut

Next scene, in the home of Verdis. Mama Verdi says: "Well, the boy expected, he will get a hard beating from you." The papa laughs: "See, and he received a spinnet instead !" And the camera shows the spinnet, or is it called "virginal" in English ? The piano - like instrument, anyway. Then we are told, the instrument is still available to see in the Verdian museum.

However, I dont remember the part about the priest really dying from TV.


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## RandallPeterListens

Well, if tragic death falls into the general rubric of "interesting biography", we have Enrique Granados, who died when the ship he was on, the SS Sussex, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in WWI. Also connected with WWI, we have Alberic Magnard, who rather foolishly demanded the invading German forces leave his property in France during the war. He waved around a rather antique hunting rifle and the German soldiers shot and killed him.
But for "curious" as "interesting", certainly Carlo Gesualdo has to appear near the top of the heap. Not only did he kill his first wife in a jealous rage, but his remorse seems to have mentally unhinged him for the remainder of his life. Apparently, he was into a kind of, shall we say, bathroom masochism. It's a miracle he found time to write the amount of music he did. Some (but certainly not all) of his music seems to be a close reflection of his personality.
In terms of personality disorders, we have Robert Schumann and somewhat less well known, Anton Bruckner. Bruckner was institutionalized on several occasions - at one point, he was not allowed to be outside at night, due to his obsessive compulsion in trying to count the number of stars visible in the night sky. He would become quite disturbed and unmanageable when he lost count.
Just a comment on the above: regardless of the broad spectrum of composer personalities (from disturbed to dull and boring), most were able to write great music despite their life circumstances or able to channel their personality traits into compositions which a broad range of people could appreciate and enjoy and didn't immediately mirror their personalities (with Gesualdo, perhaps, as an exception).


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## mossyembankment

Liszt seems to have had the most eventful life, but for me Schumann is the most personally interesting.


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## Hogwash




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## elgar's ghost

Without giving it too much thought so far, my immediate default settings would suggest Shostakovich and Bernstein.


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## haziz

Dvořák.


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## lextune

Wagner.

There is certainly no other composer who inspired so many biographies.


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## Manxfeeder

Erik Satie had an interesting life, from a Bohemian Rosicrucian to friendship with Debussy, then being in the thick of whatever was happening at the time, collaborating with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso, inspiring Les Six, taking the first steps into neoclassicism, writing the first frame-by-frame movie music, and being lionized by the Dadists.


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## KlassikerDronning

mbhaub said:


> Not my favorite composer by any stretch, but Franz Liszt's bio is utterly amazing. From prodigy, seducer of every woman around, to a conductor of very progressive ideas, on to entering a religious order. It's fascinating. And the list of other great musicians he knew and worked with is astonishing. Alan Walker's 3-volume biography is worth every cent. Anyone who really wants to understand 19th c Romanticism must read it.


Schubert is by far the most interesting, talented, intelligent, composer to me when it comes to classical music!
Icalso thought Beethoven and Bach were quite badass as well, like death metal musicians in the old ages. Definitely 3 of the best!


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## Enthalpy

*Borodine*'s biography is interesting in that he excelled in composition and in chemistry.

Msuic and science are perfectly compatible and even close to an other. Many known scientists also play(ed) music, like Pythagoras or Einstein. Some musicians chose their job after studying science first, like Joshua Epstein. But mastering both to pro+ level is quite exceptional. Borodine's synthesis reaction is still commonly used today.


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## Nate Miller

I always liked the story of our first free-lance composer...W.A. Mozart

he was actually the first rock star.. played for Kings and Princes then died young and penniless, buried in a pauper's grave

the perfect role model for any musician


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## composingmusic

There's so many that have had interesting lives in various ways. Messiaen, Sibelius, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bernstein, Gubaidulina, Xenakis... I could keep going on for a while!


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## pianozach

Without a doubt, and without two moments' thought, *Ben Franklin*. Man, _that_ guy was vastly interesting. Maybe not a _major_ composer, but he was a composer.

Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE was an American polymath who was also active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher.

Yeah, inventor.

The Glass Harmonica
Urinary Catheter
Swim Fins
Odometer
Reaching Device
Franklin Stove
Bifocals
Lightning Rod


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## KlassikerDronning

Enthalpy said:


> *Borodine*'s biography is interesting in that he excelled in composition and in chemistry.
> 
> Msuic and science are perfectly compatible and even close to an other. Many known scientists also play(ed) music, like Pythagoras or Einstein. Some musicians chose their job after studying science first, like Joshua Epstein. But mastering both to pro+ level is quite exceptional. Borodine's synthesis reaction is still commonly used today.


Yes, music Notations are divided in measures and time. Just like the universe. It's math and physics basically.


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## Agamenon

lextune said:


> Wagner.
> 
> There is certainly no other composer who inspired so many biographies.


Wagner Biography is an Encyclopedia of the second half of the 19th century. Point.


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## Enthalpy

*Paganini*.

All his life long, and even after, he failed doing something normal.

Check how he gave Berlioz 1/10th of his wealth, how he gave a violin to a pupil, lost a violin playing cards, ejected the priest's envoy from his death chamber, wasn't granted a tomb in the cemetery for being the devil (1840!), was uncertainly identified decades later for burial by the Church. And how his home was destroyed nightly by real estate developers.


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