Pathographies Alcoholism and Psychiatry Research 2015;51:151-168 Received May 21, 2015 Anxieties and Depression Disorders in Composers’ Tomislav Breitenfeld1, Darko Breitenfeld1, Mislav Pap1, Križo Katinić2, Ivica Kostelić1, Ivana Rešetar1 1Croatian Physicians´ Music Society, C.M.A., Zagreb, Croatia, 2University Department of Psychiatry, Sestre Milosrdnice University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia Summary – In this paper, we presented an overview of composers diseases in the last five hundred years. The collected data were obtained from the biographies of more than ten thousand composers and over a thousand pathographies. It is the world’s largest processed sample so far. The diseases mentioned and their comorbidities had an impact on lives and work of composers (87). They have shortened their life span from just over sixty years average to approximately fifty years. Key words: composers´ diseases, anxieties, depressions Copyright © 2015 KBCSM, Zagreb e-mail: [email protected] • www.http//hrcak.srce.hr/acoholism Introduction Rolande (Orlando) de Lassus From the biographies of more than ten (C 1532-1594) thousand composers and over a thousand Flemish – renaissance conductor and pathographies it appears that in the last five composer. In 1586 his mental and physi- hundred years the average lifespan of com- cal health worsened so he withdrew to the posers was more than sixty years. Composers countryside, which helped him a lot. In ap- presented in this work were sorted chrono- proximately 1590 he became more and more logically by the year of their birth. [1-7] Some depressed, paranoid, amnesic, leading to de- pathographies were more deeply elaborated, mentia. He had a stroke, which resulted in a and all pathographies with diagnoses were speech disturbance. shown chronologically in the additional list of composers affected by anxiety and de- Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613) pression. [8-11]. Italian composer. He married his cousin for dynastic purposes, his wife was a daugh- ter of the marquis of Pescara. She was not a very sincere and faithful wife. So he pun- ished her by killing her. This act forced him Correnspodence to: Darko Breitenfeld, Derenčinova 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia to withdraw from the public life and he spent e-mail: [email protected] the rest of his life in his castle. Later he mar- 152 ried a niece of the duke and this was another believed that he suffered from depression, mistake. His marriage failed for the second anxiety and melancholy. After he had turned time, there were conversations that he also sixty, he died in just three weeks. from a fe- killed his younger, maybe illegitimate daugh- verish acute illness. ter. All these circumstances caused a severe mental crisis to the point of the break down. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) A social misfit inclined to masochism, he let German composer, organist and conduc- himself be whipped. Strangely enough, this tor. He was qualified as a man of a big ap- was the only way he could empty his body petite, a trencherman, and it was even said he properly. He died three weeks after the death was apt to drink and change his mood. Thus, of his only son Emanuel who was born from in the cases of overworking or failure in his marriage with Carla, his first wife. He died business dealings, and probably due to his deeply depressed, probably from the conse- picnic constitution and cyclothymia, he was quences of asthmatic problems when he was prone to shorter or longer depressive con- 53. ditions which always ended with decreased activities. His frankness, extrovert nature, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) cheerfulness up to hypomania were rarely in- Italian composer and violinist. There was terrupted by deeper depressions, particularly a tragedy in his family when he was 40, his in the years 1729, 1734, 1737, 1742, 1743, wife died and left him with two underage 1745, (strokes?, embolisms?, alcohol abuse?). children. This resulted with depression and When he was about seventy years old, he was illness and consequently, he became less ac- especially down, due to his blindness and im- tive. His later activities are tied with Venice. possibility to lead further dynamic life of a When he was 65, there was another period performer and composer. He was often sit- of depression and illness. It was the time of ting “in the dark”, feeling bad. If he had plague epidemic which eliminated all social lived in modern times of alienation but also activities, therefore orders for musical pieces of professional devel oped improvement, he as well. Whenever there was a hard time for would probably go to see a psychiatrist, more him, he used to return to his family in Cre- probably because of the ex pressed distur- mona, so did he just before his death. He had bances than because of a severe manic-de- a need to see his family, hometown and Lom- pressive disorder. bardia in general, since he was most appreci- He was still great, had an excellent mem- ated there. All this was too tense for him, he ory, his creativeness was still alive but due to returned home to Venice already ill and died diminished abilities to act, he sunk into lone- in fever at the age of 76. liness and sor row. Since 1753. he has been totally blind. While he was still able to write Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) music on the paper, he wrote down about the Italian composer and violinist. He was difficulties he had with his sight. (“I am hin- known as a humble, mild and moral man. dered in my work because of relaxation of Due to frail health he receded from public my left eye’s sight’’). The cataract is not to life, probably after prolonged hardship. It is be blamed as the only reason for his blind- Alcoholism and Psychiatry Research 2015;51:151-168 Breitenfeld at al. 153 ness, according to many ex perts. Maybe it es in his favor, motions of the pupil, light, was a question of some other eye illness. Ac- etc., but upon drawing the curtain, we found cording to Evers, Handel’s eye-disease can the bottom defective from the paralytic dis- be best interpreted as a central vascular dis- order.” order with degeneration of retina or with It was all a big failure, but the only thing ischemic changes in the correspond ing brain good is that Handel, in comparison to Bach, nuclei and tracts, complicated by a simple se- lived long enough to reach his seventies. Al- nile or post-traumatic cataract, diabetes and though mentally alert, he was after all, gloomy hypertension. Handel’s profile of risk factors and depressed, but nevertheless he lived to points most probably to a vascular degenera- his 74 year, far below his composing activi- tion of macula or a damage of choroid ves- ties. In October 1758, he started to weaken, sels. lose his well known gluttony, became orien- But we also indicate the possibility of the tated to himself and sullen. al coholic damage of the optic nerve in the He still intended to take a cure in the wa- sense of retro bulbar neuritis, optics fasci- ter-place. On April the 7th 1759, it said in the cle. The cataract, by systematically worsened pa pers, that Handel intended to undergo a possible alcoholic retro bulbar neuritis of treatment in Bath. Then he was present at the op tic nerve could entirely explain his blind- per formance of “Messiah”, he maybe even ness. However, he continues to attend the per formed some improvisations (because it perform ances, especially of his works, per- was announced so), but it is more likely that forms sepa rately by improvising. The whole due to his worsened health condition, he medicine staff of London rally around him was only present at the performance. After in order to help. They try to improve his de- he returned home he felt sick, and took to stroyed sight and to remove his pains, oper- bed, aware of the nearness of his death. He ating by means of needles and cuts. At first wrote a codicil and by his last will he left all the opera tion was done by a well-known eye- he pos sessed to his relatives, acquaintances, doctor from the Guy Hospital and then by friends and also for humanitarian purposes. the court surgeon William Bromfield in 1752. According to the statement of his doctor, After that in the year 1753 he underwent dr. Warren, he died in the evening of April an op eration again, carried out by the well- the 13th, although the day after has been known wondering operator who was mostly stated more frequently as his day of death. seen on the fairs and was probably a medical Han del’s pathography turns to obscurities charlatan. His name was John Taylor and he re garding his diseases in 1729, 1734, 1737, reports as fol lows: “I have seen a vast vari- 1742, 1743 and 1745, because the complete ety of singular ani mals, such as dromedaries, recovery from manifold stroke at the age of camels, etc., and par ticularly at Leipzig, where fifties is quite unusual. It also points out his a celebrated master of music (J.S.Bach), who picnic constitu tion with inclination to this- had already arrived at his 68th year, received worldly delights and pleasures, his unstable his sight at my hands, it was with this very states of his mood (depressive states particu- man that the famous Handel was first edu­ larly during his ill ness), but not up to the level cated, and with whom I once thought to have of mental disease of circular psychosis, and the same success, having all the circumstanc- also the sad development of his fruitful and Anxiety and depression in composers Alcoholism and Psychiatry Research 2015;51:151-168 154 dynamic life directed towards too much lone- improve his health significantly.