Category: Music Box
-
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…
-
Sergei Rachmaninoff: The dichotomy of life and music
Michael Yafi Chaden Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Rachmaninoff. Photo by Bain News Service. between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920. Library of Congress Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), a Russian composer, was known for having very large hands. With a span that covered twelve white keys on the keyboard (the interval of a thirteenth), he could play…
-
Shostakovich, shrapnel, and chronic poliomyelitis
Michael Yafi Houston Texas, United States Illustration by Elena Toponogova Pianist, London, U.K The life of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) has fascinated artists, musicologists, and physicians who have tried to make a connection between his medical history and musical repertoire. Having once said, “When I hear about someone else’s pain, I feel pain too,” Shostakovich…
-
Robert Schumann’s hand injury
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Robert and Clara Schumann. By Eduard Kaiser. 1847. Via Wikimedia The death of the American pianist Leon Fleisher (1928–2020)1 whose brilliant career as a piano soloist was upended in his mid-thirties by the development of a crippling movement disorder affecting his right hand, brings to mind the composer…
-
The two nightingales
Inga Lewenhaupt Einar Perman Stockholm, Sweden Jenny Lind standing at a keyboard. Library of Congress, Bain Collection. Accessed via Wikimedia. Source Two remarkable women were born in the same year two centuries ago: Jenny Lind (1820-1887) and Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). Both became world famous, Jenny Lind for her beautiful singing voice, Florence Nightingale for…
-
Mahler’s endocarditis and broken heart
Michael YafiHouston, Texas, United States Gustave Mahler (1860–1911) suffered from personal setbacks throughout his life. Despite receiving more acclaim in early 1900, the death of his daughter Maria from scarlet fever and diphtheria affected him deeply.1 During the same year, Mahler received a vague diagnosis of a “defective heart,” which was later confirmed by the Viennese cardiologist…
-
Four Women Dancing
The urge to move to music is universal. Dancing represents an essential part of human culture, and acts as a social unifier, increasing cohesion in a group. Collective effervescence, a concept created by sociologist Émile Durkheim, is what sits at the heart of dancing and gives it its unifying power. A more unified community is…
-
Gymnopédie
Mark Tan Northwest Deanery, UK First phrase of Gymnopédie. Erik Satie, 1888. Gymnopédie No. 1. Public domain Oblique et coupant l’ombre un torrent éclatant Ruisselait en flots d’or sur la dalle polie Où les atomes d’ambre au feu se miroitant Mêlaient leur sarabande à la gymnopédie [English translation]: Slanting and shadow-cutting a bursting stream…
-
“Moonlight” and silence
Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Woman at the Piano. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1875/76. Art Institute of Chicago. At seventeen, I knew little about the limitations or losses that might cause a person to second-guess a vocation, deeply held belief, or identity. Perhaps those questions about the unknowable future inhabit the soul of a…