Was Beethoven Killed

August 31, 2007 at 01:57 AM · Its makes always a good headline to suspect murder. However this time the suspect was not Salieri. lol

Medical treatment back then was certainly not as good as today. For some deseases stuff like mercury was used. So if the patient survived the 'cure' he must have had a really strong will for survival. However I wonder how many people are 'killed' in our times through wrong diagnosis and treatment.

Lets be glad that the deadly sick Beethoven was able to compose music (like the late piano sonatas and the 9th sympphony etc.) which still after almost 200 years is able to move millions of music lovers all over the globe.

I think no madder what was the cause for Beethoven's death he fulfilled his mission.

Von Herzen - Moege es wieder zu Herzen gehen. (Ludig van Beethoven)

August 31, 2007 at 04:40 AM · Yes.

August 31, 2007 at 09:04 AM · Since "Amadeus" was such a hit, the parallel movie about Beethoven will be called "van" and will star Denzel Washington in the title role. In this movie, the culprit is Schubert, who actually helped Beethoven so much with the editing of the 9th Symphony that he practically wrote it, and shortly thereafter murdered Beethoven by putting arsenic in his Big Mac. This has been undisputably proved by the same people who have proved that other murdered composers include Bach, Charles Ives, and Irving Berlin. Conspiracies abound everywhere.

:) Sandy

August 31, 2007 at 12:16 PM · "Beethoven's Hair" by Russell Martin is actually pretty good, even if the pace is unnecessarily melodramatic. This short, non-fiction "Lead Biography" is a fairly interesting social and scientific research story. As I recall anyway...

(Note to fellow Book People...Don't loan your books out. Ever. You won't get them back. Consider them long gone, stolen vanished. OK, rant over.)

August 31, 2007 at 01:20 PM · Sandy - Ed Harris did such a good job of playing Beethoven in "Copying Beethoven" that he has to have the role.

August 31, 2007 at 01:40 PM · Come on, Sandy, everyone knows that's how Tchaikovsky died, not Beethoven!

September 2, 2007 at 07:57 PM · Lead poisoning was not uncommon in the 18th and 19th Centuries and is, unfortunately, more common than it should be today due to many older houses still having layers of lead based paint. In the 18th and 19th Centuries a major source was pewter dishes and goblets. Back in the 60s I had a couple pewter goblets that I loved for wine and brandy until someone told me about the lead ingestion problems. In South Africa there is an effort to stop cooking in old iron kettles that led to iron poisoning and when I grew up in the 50s aluminum cookware was common in the US which can cause aluminum poisoning. All of these metals take time to build up to a lethal dose. If someone wanted to kill Beethoven, there were quicker poisons, such as the arsenic used to kill Napoleon.

September 6, 2007 at 01:42 PM · Actually, Beethoven is killed on a regular basis by an endless number of orchestras and soloists.

September 6, 2007 at 04:15 PM · Sandy - well put!

September 6, 2007 at 04:28 PM · LMAO

September 6, 2007 at 10:21 PM · Immortal Beloved was pretty good. The edited version.

September 7, 2007 at 01:04 PM · Pretty good but historically inaccurate.

September 7, 2007 at 03:48 PM · Years ago, I read a book that was about what a coroner today would conclude from the records of the deaths of composers. While these are not real autopsies, these pathologists reviewed all the materials avialble and tried to deduce what these artists died from. Beethoven, according to these doctors, had significant liver damage prior to death. While he may have died from treatment, he was well on his way. A very sick fellow. Interestingly, many of the composers showed symptoms of mental illness and strange behavior associated with STD. I was surprised by how many of these guys showed STD symptoms before their deaths. A seeming epidemic for composers! Paganini is suspected of suffering from a syndrome that causes an elongation of the fingers. He is sometimes described as looking strange. I don't remember the name of this disease, but Klaus Kinsky, the famous actor that played Darracula in the old movie suffered from the same syndrome. Their appearance is described as "startling". It causes your muscles to weaken allowing you joints to hyper extend due to a deterioration in the connective tissues. This one way his legendary finger dexterity is explained. While Pagannini is believed to have fostered legends for self promotion, one report said he could bend his thumb all the way back to touch the back of his hand. Almost like rubber. This is not proven of course, and he was known to exagerate, creating many of the legends that surround him. Another observer wrote that Paganinni said he hardly practiced, yet associates knew he secretly would practice 14 hours a day sometimes before a performance. This disease however also weakens the heart muscles and eye muscles usually leading to blindness or heart failure and any number of other organ failure problems resulting in death. Individuals with the syndrome usually die in midlife or before. He along with others however all showed symptoms of STDs. while it is difficult to prove any of this stuff, these are some obscure insights for your next game of composer Trivial Pursuit.

September 7, 2007 at 06:40 PM · Schubert died of syphillis.

September 7, 2007 at 07:17 PM · The syndrome that (it has been speculated) Paganini had is Marfan syndrome. It's the same disease some people think Abraham Lincoln had. It causes weak connective tissues and elongated features in the people who have it. It also causes a host of potentially lethal problems as people reach adulthood. I'm pretty sure the ideas about Paganini and Lincoln are mostly guesses.