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Beethoven died from lead poisoning
By focusing the most powerful X-ray beam in the Western Hemisphere on six of Ludwig van Beethoven's hairs and a few pieces of his skull, scientists have gathered what they say is conclusive evidence that the famous composer died of lead poisoning.
The work, done at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, confirms earlier hints that lead may have caused Beethoven's decades of poor health, which culminated in a long and painful death in 1827 at age 56.
Wine from lead cups may have been the problem. Here is the full story. Just yesterday over lunch I had to shoot down (shout down?) Bryan Caplan's claim that Wagner was the greater composer of the two. Bach and Beethoven are at the top, then Mozart and Brahms. After that it gets hard, but Stravinsky, Chopin, Monteverdi, Haydn, and Wagner come to mind...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 6, 2005 at 08:09 AM in Music | Permalink
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Comments
Have you read Murray's "Human Accomplishment"?
It's the closest thing we have to a formal ranking
Beethoven
Motzart
Bach
Wagner
Posted by: michael e vassar at Dec 6, 2005 8:55:29 AM
Brahms???
Posted by: John P. at Dec 6, 2005 9:14:45 AM
Coming from a family that actually listened to Classical Music (that is, not just as background music or intellectual fodder) I always understood the rankings to be like this: Top 3: Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in any order you want. Everyone else somewhat below with people like Wagner, Brahms and Haydn near the top of the second tier.
Posted by: Ian Lewis at Dec 6, 2005 9:29:35 AM
I like (some) Wagner myself, but lots of his stuff makes me think of
Shaw's observation that "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
Sometimes attributed to Twain, but I'm pretty sure it was GBS.
Posted by: Alan Gunn at Dec 6, 2005 10:06:04 AM
I’d slightly doubt the "wine from lead cups" idea. Also their thought of lead leaching from lead glasses.
Much more likely is pewter, tin mixed (at that time) with a little lead. Often used for drinking cups and plates and other table ware. However, in contact with anything reasonably acidic the lead can leach. Wine and beer generally not but sauerkraut (?spelling?) is known to cause such leaching.
In the part of the world I come from (Somerset) you can tell if you’re walking into a beer pub or a cider pub by the tankards on display. If they’re pewter then it’s a beer pub, if pottery/porcelain then a cider one for the cider will leach the lead out of the pewter.
and that is your metals geek factoid for the day
Posted by: Tim Worstall at Dec 6, 2005 10:29:49 AM
I go back and forth on the magnitude of Wagner's greatness, often within minutes. But he certainly was a better opera composer than Beethoven. (Personally, if it weren't for the late quartets I'd consider Beethoven terribly overrated.)
I don't think it's the source of the "better than it sounds" quote, but Mark Twain did write a brilliant essay about visiting Bayreuth: http://www.twainquotes.com/Travel1891/Dec1891.html
Please do not neglect to put Schubert close behind the obligatory top three.
Posted by: gundryggia at Dec 6, 2005 11:15:37 AM
Bach, Beethoven and then Mozart and Haydn tied for third..
Posted by: Roland at Dec 6, 2005 11:21:28 AM
I like Prokofiev.
I think that compositions released before the invention of the phonograph tend to be inferior-sounding now, because of the different purpose of music before it could be replayed by the audience. Music is now designed to be heard repeatedly, and before it basically wasn't. This is analogous to how art created before the invention of the photograph is relatively unappealing, because most of it strives to be photorepresentative.
Posted by: Paul N at Dec 6, 2005 11:43:54 AM
I rank Bach number one, and will refuse to consider seriously any ranking that does not place him in the top three. . .
Posted by: Derek Lowe at Dec 6, 2005 11:44:13 AM
Boccherini is a very underrated composer. :)
Posted by: bob mcmanus at Dec 6, 2005 12:05:07 PM
Nothing captures the real spirit of great music like ranking
composers. Now, if we can only get around to ranking poets.
Posted by: Dan Cole at Dec 6, 2005 2:17:30 PM
I have to argue for Dvorak, Haydn and Rachmaninoff.
Posted by: Jake at Dec 6, 2005 2:26:12 PM
I'd add Buxtehude to the list--Bach idolized the guy and I understand why. Haydn is underrated; he should be programmed a LOT more in lieu of all of the so-so renditions of Mozart's 40th symphony and opera overtures. Handel is interesting. I'm sick of Vivaldi.
Posted by: Chris R at Dec 6, 2005 2:59:27 PM
I'll take Mahler over Brahms any day of the week, although I'll take
Brahms's violin concerto over any other. Both Schubert and Brahms
can be very beautiful, but unfortunately both are ultimately too
derivative of Beethoven to be in the very top rank.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Dec 6, 2005 4:08:04 PM
McCartney and Lennon?
Posted by: rmark at Dec 6, 2005 4:17:01 PM
"I hear that Wagner isn't as bad as he sounds!"
--Rumpole
Posted by: Michael C at Dec 6, 2005 9:55:03 PM
So do you have any reasons for these (seemingly) arbitrary rankings or are you just putting them in the order that your music history textbooks tell you to?
Posted by: purple at Dec 6, 2005 11:34:15 PM
Mozart and Haydn tied for third??
Mozart is Haydn with genius.
Haydn is Mozart without genius.
Posted by: Lee at Dec 6, 2005 11:53:49 PM
OPERA: Beethoven vs Wagner
Wagner wrote many operas(perhaps less than it seems, but many
Beethoven wrote one.
Sorta hard to compare!
Posted by: lee at Dec 6, 2005 11:58:26 PM
Gotta disagree with the comment about Beethoven's work before the
late SQ's being less than great. Beethoven took a pedestrian format, the
symphony, and singl-handedly elevated it to an entirely new level. While
deaf! And for my money, the middle quartets are more enjoyable than the
late ones, and every bit as progressive. And you gotta love a guy who told
the leading quartet of his day "what do I care for you and your f*cking
fiddles" when faced with complaints that the Razumovsky Quartets were
"unplayable."
And Ludwig van shouldn't even be considered as an opera composer - one work
isn't enbough to form an opinion. As opera composers go, I'd put Mozart
at the head of the pack, with Wagner being very much an acquired taste.
Hayden was a plugger - a journeyman who cranked out the same thing over
and over again, a bit like Vivaldi, but not quite as entertaining.
Anyways, I'm much more interested in modern works. Schnittke, Adams, Varese
and Cage interest me much more than the old dead Germans.
Posted by: Barry P. at Dec 7, 2005 1:26:12 AM
What is this, Mitteleuropadopaland? Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Rossini, Mussorgsky, Debussy, Sibelius, Puccini, Ravel...
Posted by: MTC at Dec 7, 2005 8:07:28 AM
The symphony before Beethoven was "pedestrian"? Is this a comic effort or a real post?
Posted by: jult52 at Dec 7, 2005 9:29:30 AM
Where were you guys last century? Webern #3.
Posted by: psh at Dec 7, 2005 10:13:29 AM
Not wanting to turn this into a stylistic flame war, but the fact is, before Beethoven the symphony was
typically a piece of formulaic, relatively short program music, often played in disjointed parts to
provide "program breaks" in choral concerts and operas. Very few early Classical-era symphonies were
longer than 20 minutes, they all followed a similar formula and were not considered the most important
part of any concert.
This isn't to say that there weren't good symphonies before LvB, of course there were, but the form had
not really progressed stylistically for many years until Beethoven got around to Eroica.
Beethoven transformed the symphony from a concerto without featured instruments into the standard form
of the magnum opus. It's hard to imagine the meisterstucke of Mahler, Bruckner and Brahms without the
stylistic and programmatical developments introduced by LvB.
Beethoven, IMO, single-handedly transformed two of my favorite forms, the symphony and the string quartet.
Based on that, he is without peer. But, hey, we're all entitled to our opinions.
Posted by: Barry P, at Dec 7, 2005 11:31:18 AM
"Beethoven, IMO, single-handedly transformed two of my favorite forms, the symphony and the string quartet. Based on that, he is without peer."
Well, Haydn basically invented both of them, so...
Beethoven's symphonies are of course brilliant, but I have never felt them to be works of unmatched genius. Aside from his stab at opera--and I enjoy the second half of Fidelio quite a bit--Beethoven was not much of a success at "narrative" music; see Wellington's Victory. Or at matching words with music (or composing for the voice at all!); see the Ode to Joy. I can understand someone rating Wagner more highly if she thought these aspects of music were extremely important.
However, Beethoven's sublime--not an adjective I use lightly--late quartets and piano sonatas are, for me, matched only by the best work of Bach.
Posted by: gundryggia at Dec 7, 2005 12:42:39 PM
