Книга: That Jealous Demon, My Wretched Health. Disease, Death and Composers

The health and deaths of composers excite controversy, as issues regarding Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Beethoven, Mozart, and recently Britten, reveal. Much good previous scholarship has been sullied by unsubstantiated views and ex-cathedra statements, and the business of this book has been to unpick the evidence forensically and base conclusions on the legal paradigm of a Balance of Probabilities. Most of the 100 or so diagnoses previously attached to Mozart or Beethoven are discarded. The author takes strong issue with a previous tendency to emphasise the salacious. Alcoholism is shown to be quite rare and incompatible with sustaining composition. In particular, syphilis has been grossly over-diagnosed in the past. Reputations are rehabilitated in this book, wherewith an attempt is made to relate the nature of composition to composers suffering. And suffer many of them did, often bravely and stoically. The popular concept of a little madness fuelling creativity is challenged. The author reviews where the composer was when the final illness or death overtook him, and considers how many of them would have fared with modern treatment. Speculation is allowed into the What if he hadn't died young? question. Despite much triumph in adversity, illness (like alcohol) fuelling composition is a misconception. JONATHAN NOBLE is a retired surgeon, who has spent many years researching the illnesses and deaths of composers. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and was President of the British Association of Knee Surgeons, as well as the British Orthopaedic Sports Trauma Association.