Ten Famous Composers of the Romantic Era and Their Causes of Death

The musical composers in the Romantic Era (1800–1910) strived for compositions that expressed human life, including happiness, harmony, and despair. They lived in a period in which freedom of thought, expression of emotion, and inspiration by nature predominated. During this period, intensive tradin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical principles and practice 2022, Vol.31 (1), p.20-28
Main Author: Pauwels, Ernest K.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cause of Death
Classical music
Composers
Deafness
Edema
Emotions
Fever
Hair
Humans
Illnesses
Infectious diseases
Inflammatory bowel disease
Lead content
Lead poisoning
Music - psychology
Orchestras
Pneumonia
Review
Romantic music (Classical)
Romantic period
Syphilis - history
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Summary:The musical composers in the Romantic Era (1800–1910) strived for compositions that expressed human life, including happiness, harmony, and despair. They lived in a period in which freedom of thought, expression of emotion, and inspiration by nature predominated. During this period, intensive trading with other parts of the world brought new microorganisms along, which made infections and epidemics very common. This article serves to address the cause of death and relevant biographic data of a number of well-known Romantic composers. Primarily, this review refers to clinically significant findings using reports that were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, and Google over the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries till 14th June 2021. This text dwells on diseases and the cause of death of ten composers, namely Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Liszt, Mahler, and Bruckner. It is evident that from the perspective of modern medicine, symptoms and forensic facts are not complete, but witnesses’ reports and recent medical research have provided passable and plausible clarity. Although many questions will remain unanswered, it appears that the diseases of these composers and their causes of death have their origins in alcohol abuses, age, epidemics (like tuberculosis), and syphilis.
ISSN:1011-7571
1423-0151
1423-0151
DOI:10.1159/000521537