Henry Purcell

[LeMartinPecheur]

DM spoke of the death of Purcell as if it were the C17th equivalent of Princess Di, with the whole country in mourning. The fact is 36 was about the average lifespan in the 17th century. Sad? Undoubtedly. But a nation weeps? Please.

True only up to a point, Sir V. I've heard the same point made about Schubert, dead at 31. BUT you have to consider the very high rate of INFANT mortality in those days. John Reed notes of Schubert's case: "Of the fourteen children of [S's parents'] marriage only five survived to adulthood... [In] those days a child had only a one in three chance of reaching maturity...".

What this means is that provided you survived childhood, you had an expectation not very much different from our own of reaching the biblical threescore years and ten. But the life expectancy of each new-born babe was still 30-35 even though few people actually died at this age. Average lots of infant deaths and lots at 60, 70, 80 and you end up with something in the 30s. Deceptive things statistics

Both Purcell and Schubert, not to mention Mozart, really were genuinely unlucky to die when they did. And their contemporaries were perfectly entitled to be shocked, and to weep.