Five little-known facts about some of the world’s most famous classical composers

I am no expert on classical music, but our compendium of original obituaries of the world’s greatest composers is a fascinating study of geniuses at work. These contemporary accounts of the lives of 101 maestros like Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Wagner and Schubert - sourced from the archives of newspapers and musical journals the world over - give a sense of how they were regarded at the times they died and reveal some fascinating and little-known facts about them.

Bach and Schubert were barely known at the time of their deaths

It’s difficult to comprehend that two of our best-loved classical music composers had hardly been heard of outside a small circle of friends and acquaintances in their home towns, and that it was only after their passing - and thanks to the hard work of those admiring friends and relatives - that their music won them the fame they enjoy today.

Beethoven wanted to kill himself in his late 20s

We learn how a “morose, unyielding, eccentric, irritable and gloomy” Beethoven contemplated suicide after losing his hearing at the age of 28. In a posthumous letter to his brother, the composer wrote plaintively: “I have been compelled, at an early age, to separate myself from the world and to live in solitude. If occasionally I would defy my condition and go into company, how severely do I then feel its wretchedness! ...Oh these were moments which almost drove me to despair; little was wanting to make me terminate my life with my own hands.”

Both Beethoven and Mozart died in poverty

Despite both having found worldwide fame during their lives, both composers spent their latter years living in poverty. Mozart was deep in debt and his work no longer in favour, while Beethoven, in increasing ill health and apparently in great financial necessity, wrote to the Philharmonic Society in London, asking it to arrange a concert for his benefit. The Society immediately sent him a present of £100 to try to relieve his distress.

Liszt fell madly in love with a young Parisian countess

Who could not but enjoy the description, in an 1886 obituary, of a precocious, pre-teen Franz Liszt and his reception in France some 60 years previously: “Le Petit Liszt was idolised by the elite of the ladies of Paris, and had a passport into the select circles… a vivacious lad, full of mischief and merriment.” Later, we learn that his “precocious passion” for a young Parisian countess led to “disappointment in love, and drove him into unhealthy habits… [and] a violent attack of the maladie du siècle. He read Rousseau, Voltaire, Byron, Dupin, and became a prey to doubt and despair. Then he plunged into the pleasures of Paris (“that city of perdition”...), forsook the church, and haunted places of amusement.”

Handel’s Messiah was a flop when it premiered in England

Hard to believe given its immense popularity today, but we discover how Handel, after engaging in an ultimately futile battle of supremacy over the production of operas in 18th-century London, put on his now beloved Messiah there, but that it was “coldly received” by the audience. Infuriated and practically penniless, he fled to Dublin to use it in a charitable concert for the city prison, where its merits were better appreciated, a view the world later came to share.

I shan’t spoil your enjoyment by revealing any more of the many other interesting facts in this collection of the lives of the great classical composers - but there are plenty, believe me. Our Maestros obituaries are published in four ebook volumes via the Kindle store here, each priced at just £2.99 or £3.99.