Enough Schubert

[Dave2002]

It has always been a sexually transmitted disease, so we don't have to have much imagination to guess how Schubert got it. I have seen references to 'hereditary syphilis' in relation to Schumann, which suggests a second way of transmission, but I'm no expert.

The best contemporary musical example would probably have been Delius.

It is generally an STD, but I believe other modes of transmission are possible. It can be passed on congenitally.

Anyway, what do we know about Schubert and sex? If you read many books about composers before 1960 you'd imagine that most composers never indulged, though some obviously had children.

[french frank]

It can be passed on congenitally.

It has been/is a cause of child death, but I'm not sure whether children with the disease often/ever live to adulthood unless treated.

[John Skelton]

Anyway, what do we know about Schubert and sex?

An essay by Maynard Solomon, "Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini," 19th-Century Music 12, no. 3 (Spring 1989): 193-206

set the cat among the peacocks, so to speak: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...gination=false

[aeolium]

I have seen references to 'hereditary syphilis' in relation to Schumann, which suggests a second way of transmission, but I'm no expert.

There has been some suggestion that the symptoms of Schumann's mental deterioration in his last years were those of mercury poisoning, mercury being the usual treatment for syphilis then, but against that is the family history of mental disturbance. Schumann's sister seems to have been schizophrenic and committed suicide in her 30s, and also his father was described as 'melancholic and close to insanity'.

[Pabmusic]

There has been some suggestion that the symptoms of Schumann's mental deterioration in his last years were those of mercury poisoning, mercury being the usual treatment for syphilis then, but against that is the family history of mental disturbance. Schumann's sister seems to have been schizophrenic and committed suicide in her 30s, and also his father was described as 'melancholic and close to insanity'.

Thank you, very interesting.

[bwhitjo]

Schubertathon

Welcome to the Forum, Joseph. When it comes to the Schubertathon (and very probably as regards other matters) you will find yourself among friends. Rather than resort to CFM, I've been giving unduly neglected CDs a play.

Let's now have an end to these one-composer wall-to-wall weeks. "You can't have too much of a good thing". Tosh! I love smoked salmon, but even I would jib at the idea of eating nothing else three meals a day for eight days. A week-end, if you must, but eight days .....! Heaven forbid.

[BBMmk2]

Just shows rather narrowmindedness of some poeple in R3?

[amateur51]

Just shows rather narrowmindedness of some poeple in R3?

What does?

And which poeple [sic]?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Let's now have an end to these one-composer wall-to-wall weeks. "You can't have too much of a good thing". Tosh! I love smoked salmon, but even I would jib at the idea of eating nothing else three meals a day for eight days. A week-end, if you must, but eight days .....! Heaven forbid.

Envy me? Tell me, Major, are you fond of toffee?

MAJOR
Very!

COLONEL
We are all fond of toffee.

ALL
We are!

DUKE
Yes, and toffee in moderation is a capital thing. But to

live on toffee -- toffee for breakfast, toffee for dinner, toffee

for tea -- to have it supposed that you care for nothing but

toffee, and that you would consider yourself insulted if anything

but toffee were offered to you -- how would you like that?

COLONEL
I can quite believe that, under those circumstances,

even toffee would become monotonous.

DUKE
For "toffee" read Schubert.

WS Gilbert, Patience, Act One.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It has been/is a cause of child death, but I'm not sure whether children with the disease often/ever live to adulthood unless treated.

Isn't Oswald in Ibsen's Ghosts suffering from hereditary syphilis? (Suggesting that people at least thought it possible to survive into early adulthood?)

[gurnemanz]

Also, here is the Sean Rafferty piece interviewing Dr Beatrix Patzak, director of the Federal Pathology and Anatomy Museum, about Schubert's syphilis.

Fascinating stuff here and above. The idea of artistic creativity being akin to disease pervaded Thomas Mann, especially in its German romantic form of unfulfillable longing ("Sehnsucht"), being ultimately a death wish and an urge that places the artist not just apart from normal society but from life itself (I can't help thinking of Kafka's Gregor Samsa waking up to discover that he had turned into a beetle overnight). The incipient artistic bent of Tonio Kröger, the hero of Mann's novella of the same name, is seen by his patrician Hamburg family as like becoming a "gypsy in a green wagon", a phrase which becomes a recurring leitmotiv. When Hans Castorp visits the sanatorium on the Magic Mountain he puts aside his wholesome reading matter, a technical volume about ocean steamships, and succumbs to the delights of the artistic speculations of the gallery of "sick" people who inhabit the place. Gustav Aschenbach went off to the festering but seductive plague-ridden Venice to die an artist's death, like Richard Wagner had done in real life.

[Serial_Apologist]

DUKE
For "toffee" read Schubert.[/I]

WS Gilbert, Patience, Act One.

And today's April 1st....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And today's April 1st....

[kernelbogey]

Fascinating stuff here and above. The idea of artistic creativity being akin to disease pervaded Thomas Mann, especially in its German romantic form of unfulfillable longing ("Sehnsucht"), being ultimately a death wish and an urge that places the artist not just apart from normal society but from life itself[....]

The blessed Sean also referred in his interview with Dr Patzak to Schubert being 'manic depressive' (bipolar disorder). I haven't come across that idea before, but it would be consistent with his sister being schizophrenic. There is a fascinating book about bipolar disorder and creativity, Touched with Fire, by Dr Kay Redfield Jamison, an american clinical psychologist who is herself bipolar.

[kernelbogey]

Is there a recognisable theme? Do you by any chance have access to Dictionary of Musical Themes by Denys Parsons? Marvellous book. Take a theme and write down the first 15 notes. No musical knowledge required. Just the ability to decide if each note, relative to the preceding note, is Up, Down or Repeat (ie the same). Write down the sequence such as UUDDR RDUUD DRDRU and look it up in the book. I have said book so if you'd like to PM me the theme I can have a stab at locating it for you.

Resurrection Man - thanks for that information, which is new to me, and for your kind offer. It wouldn't have worked for me in this case, as my earworm was just a few piano chords - which turn out to be from 'Die Taubenpost' from Schwanengesang.