As he neared the end, Beethoven<\/a><\/strong> suffered a fever, swollen limbs, coughing and beathing difficulties.\u00a0\u00a0As a wild thunderstorm raged in March 1827, his parting words are reported \u2013 apocryphally \u2013 to have been, \u2018I shall hear in Heaven\u2019.\u00a0<\/p> According to his friend Anselm H\u00fcttenbrenner, at about 5pm there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. \u2018Beethoven opened his eyes, lifted his right hand and looked up for several seconds with his fist clenched. Not another breath, not a heartbeat more.\u2019 He was just 56.\u00a0<\/p> We continue our list of troubled composer deaths with a composer whom we’re more likely to associate, musically at least, with serenity and cheerfulness. Joseph Haydn<\/a><\/strong> spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterh\u00e1zy family, and enjoyed significant success throughout his life.\u00a0<\/p> By the end of his long years, however, he suffered from increasing periods of ill health, including dizziness, inability to concentrate and, like Beethoven, painfully swollen legs. Distressingly, although he continued to have fresh musical ideas, he was no longer able to develop these into fully-fledged compositions.<\/p> Hi final days were less serene than he might have hoped… In May 1809 the French army under Napoleon launched an attack on Vienna and on 10th May bombarded his neighbourhood. He was appeased, however, when, two weeks before his death at the age of 77, a French officer named Sul\u00e9my sang an aria<\/a><\/strong> from his own\u00a0Creation<\/em>\u00a0to him.<\/p> French Romantic composer Chausson<\/a><\/strong> was born to an affluent Bourgeois family and studied composition with Jules Massenet<\/a><\/strong> and C\u00e9sar Franck<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p> Out for a cycle ride at his country retreat in Limay in June 1899 at the age of 44, he was killed instantly when he crashed his bicycle into a brick wall at the bottom of a steep hill. Although likely an accident, some have suggested that Chausson\u2019s death was suicide, as he had been prone to depression.\u00a0<\/p> Next, one of the more gorily captivating entries in our list of composer deaths. A French Baroque master, best known for his operas, Lully<\/a><\/strong> spent much of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He also stuck up a lasting friendship with the playwright Moli\u00e8re, with whom he collaborated on several com\u00e9die-ballets.<\/p> At the age of 56, he stabbed his own foot with his long conducting stick during a performance of his Te Deum. He subsequently refused to have his toe amputated before succumbing to gangrene three months later in March 1687.<\/p> The Spanish composer is best known for works including\u00a0Goyescas<\/em>, the\u00a0Spanish Dances<\/em>, and\u00a0Mar\u00eda del Carmen<\/em>.<\/p> When World War I began, the European premiere of his\u00a0Goyescas<\/em> was cancelled. The work was premiered instead in New York in January 1916. Shortly afterwards he was invited to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson.<\/p> His journey home involved a ship to England and a passenger ferry across the English Channel. When the ferry was torpedoed by a German U-boat, Granados dived into the water from a lifeboat to save his wife. He perished in the attempt at the age of 46. The ship subsequently broke in two, and one side \u2013 ironically containing Granados\u2019s cabin \u2013 was towed to port, along with most of its passengers. Granados and his wife left six children.<\/p> Austrian composer, conductor and musicologist Webern<\/a><\/strong> was a radical proponent of the atonal<\/a><\/strong> 12-tone method, along with his mentor Arnold Schoenberg<\/a><\/strong> and colleague Alban Berg. He was also an early convert to psychotherapy following a breakdown in 1912. At times a critic and at others an apologist for fascism, his atonal music was banned by Nazis.<\/p> With the Red Army approaching Austria in April 1945, the Weberns fled west, traveling partly on foot to Mittersill, where other family members were based. Though they arrived safely, Webern made the mistake of stepping outside his son-in-law\u2019s house for a quick smoke despite the curfew in force. He was shot by a US soldier at the age of 61.\u00a0<\/p> A colleague of Webern (see above), Berg<\/a><\/strong> combined Romantic lyricism with the 12-tone method. He achieved much acclaim for his operas\u00a0Wozzeck\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Lulu<\/em>, which had at their heart a deep understanding of the human condition.<\/p> Like Webern, Berg\u2019s modern works suffered critically from the wave of antisemitism sweeping Austria and Germany throughout the 1930s.<\/p> He died at the age of 50 in Vienna after ill-advisedly allowing his wife Helene to treat an insect sting on his back with a pair of scissors. The wound turned septic, leading to his death on Christmas Eve, 1935.<\/p> Next, one of the composer deaths with which you may be familiar. Robert Schumann<\/a><\/strong>, the prolific and much-celebrated early Romantic composer and pianist famously married the daughter of his teacher, Friedrich Wieck, despite the latter\u2019s bitter opposition. Clara Schumann<\/a><\/strong> (n\u00e9e Weick) was herself an exceptionally talented pianist and composer, who supported her husband through periods of severe mental and physical ill health.<\/p> A year after meeting the prodigiously talented Brahms<\/a><\/strong> in 1953, Schumann\u2019s mental health deteriorated gravely. He threw himself into the River Rhine but was rescued and taken to a private sanatorium in Endenich near Bonn. There he lived for more than two years, unable to see his beloved wife. He eventually died there in July 1856 at the age of 46.<\/p> The Polish conductor and late Romantic composer was a great admirer of Tchaikovsky<\/a><\/strong>, and also of Richard Wagner<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p> Passionately fond of the Tatra Mountains and photography, in February 1909 Kar\u0142owicz left the villa Lutnia at Zakopane for a solitary skiing expedition. He was swept up in, and buried by, an avalanche at the age of 32.<\/p> The English Tudor composer was active during the reigns of King Edward VI, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I. He is noted for his compositions of church music. But he was also, alas, the subject of one of the more tragic composer deaths.<\/p> Parsons is believed to have died in January 1571 at the age of 37. Travelling to his vicarage, he fell into the then swollen River Trent in Nottinghamshire and drowned. The eulogy at his funeral lamented the fact that his life had been cut short at a young age. There is no record of Parsons’s body ever having been retrieved from the river following his death.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By Published: Monday, 08 July 2024 at 12:42 PM As creative geniuses, the world\u2019s great composers often led strange and passionate lives. Yet stranger still, are the intriguing and unusual ways in which so many famous composers died. With apologies for the morbid subject matter, below are a selection of the most tragic and sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":44933,"template":"","categories":[1,17],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"7"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers.png",481,325,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers-300x203.png",300,203,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers.png",481,325,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers.png",481,325,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers.png",481,325,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/07\/deadly-serious-the-bizarre-and-tragic-deaths-of-10-famous-composers.png",481,325,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Monday, 08 July 2024 at 12:42 PM As creative geniuses, the world\u2019s great composers often led strange and passionate lives. Yet stranger still, are the intriguing and unusual ways in which so many famous composers died. With apologies for the morbid subject matter, below are a selection of the most tragic and sometimes…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/44932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Joseph Haydn \u2013 death under siege <\/h2>
Ernest Chausson \u2013 a tragic bicycle ride<\/h2>
![\"Ernest](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/Ernest-Chausson-845412e-edited.jpg\")
<\/figure>Jean-Baptiste Lully \u2013 stabbed by his own conducting baton<\/h2>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/Jean-Baptiste-Lully-edited.png\")
<\/figure>Enrique Granados \u2013 heroically drowned <\/h2>
![\"How](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/78955945_Hires_Getty-84e87ff-edited.jpg\")
Anton Webern \u2013 shot after curfew<\/h2>
![\"Anton](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/56465939_hires_getty-66a7872-scaled-edited.jpg\")
Alban Berg \u2013 death by insect sting<\/h2>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/AlbanBerg-edited.png\")
<\/figure>Robert Schumann \u2013 a tragic suicide attempt<\/h2>
![\"Composer](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/Screenshot-2024-07-03-at-09.42.13-edited.png\")
<\/figure>Mieczys\u0142aw Kar\u0142owicz \u2013 death by avalanche<\/h2>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/Mieczyslaw-Karlowicz-edited.png\")
<\/figure>Robert Parsons \u2013 drowned in a river<\/h2>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/RiverTrent-edited.png\")
<\/figure>
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