Category: Music Box
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Frederick Delius and his neurological disease
Photograph of Frederick Delius. 1907. From Monographien moderner musiker. Via Wikimedia. The life of the English composer Frederick Delius and his tragic encounter with the spirochaeta pallida has been extensively documented. He was born in 1862 in the industrial Yorkshire town of Bradford. His family had come to England from Germany but was originally Dutch,…
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Felix Mendelssohn, musical prodigy
Oil portrait of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, painted in 1846 by Eduard Magnus. From the Berlin State Library. Via Wikimedia. Felix Mendelssohn made his musical debut at age nine. Born in Hamburg in 1809, he came from a distinguished German family that moved to Berlin in 1902. His grandfather and father had been successful businessmen who…
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Franz Liszt, best piano player in Europe
Composer and pianist Franz Liszt. Photo by Franz Hanfstaengl. 1858. Via Wikimedia. Like Mozart and Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt was a musical prodigy. He played the piano when he was five years old. At eight, he could read difficult music, and two years later he was composing music himself. By age twelve he was ranked one…
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The life and death of Franz Schubert
Nicolas Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. Pencil-on-paper caricature of singer Johann Michael Vogl (left) and composer Franz Schubert (right). The caption (in German) reads: Michael Vogl and Franz Schubert go out for battle and victory. Attributed to his friend, Franz von Schober – Original is in the Historic Museum of the City of Vienna.…
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Hector Berlioz: from medical school to music conservatory
Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Portrait of Hector Berlioz. Gustave Courbet. 1850. Musée d’Orsay. Via Wikimedia Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was born in La Côte-Saint-André, France. His father was a well-known physician in his hometown in the French Alps and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. At the age of eighteen, Hector…
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Maria Callas—her inner voice revealed
Eelco Wijdicks Lea Dacy Rochester, Minnesota, United States Cover: Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas. In Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas, Paul Wink convincingly concludes—based on largely secondary sources—that Maria Callas was not only a wildly ambitious operator who was not known for an emollient manner, but a prime example of…
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The finality in their voices: Death, disease, and palliation in opera
Lea C. DacyEelco F. M. WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States I know she had tuberculosis! She was coughing her brains out . . . but still she kept right on singing.* Operatic death is often glorious, melodious, and heartbreaking. Naturally, composers and librettists can claim pristine ignorance when it comes to the process of dying. Leaving…
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Ludwig van Beethoven: music and medicine
Michael Yafi Chaden Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Beethoven home and surrounding area. Photos by Michael Yafi. December 2020 marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. The causes of the composer’s deafness and his death at the age of fifty-six have remained unknown, even after an autopsy carried out soon…