COMPOSERS AND MENTAL ILLNESS
"Cleared of imputation of clinical insanity, to Dr. Frosch's way of thinking, are Mozart, Schubert, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Gluck, Liszt, Wagner, Johann Strauss, Jr., Mahler, Pfitzner and Handel. Mental disturbances among this oddly assorted group can be traced to such causes as stroke (Gluck), alcoholism (W.F. Bach), syphilis (Schubert) and chronic renal disease (Mozart). Handel's depressions seem to have been triggered by career reverses, financial disasters, rheumatism and, finally, blindness. ''Liszt and Mahler certainly led unusual and flamboyant lives,'' Dr. Frosch agrees, but they were not psychiatrically ill. ''Mahler was neurotic, and haunted by death, but did not have major affective disease.''
- Donal Henahan, The New York Times
- Donal Henahan, The New York Times
July 20, 1986
MUSIC VIEW
MUSIC VIEW; PONDERING THE LINK BETWEEN MUSIC AND MADNESS
By Donal Henahan
The other day, in looking through a psychiatrist's report on the supposed connection between manic-depressive mood swings and musical creativity, I was brought up short. These words about Robert Schumann's lifelong history of depression leaped out at me: ''Starting in adolescence he was troubled by repeated attacks of melancholy which can be traced in his and his wife's letters as well as in their joint diary, later kept by Clara alone. For example, in May, 1831, it takes him three weeks to finish a letter . . .''
But Schumann did finish it, didn't he? If I wanted to, I could show you letters in a desk drawer that still lie unfinished after three months or three years, simply because their author is waiting for a sustained manic swing before going at them again. At any rate, let us be fair. A busy man who takes only three weeks to finish a letter (using only pen and ink, remember) deserves our respect. He is not ready for the dead-letter office just yet.
The mad artist, a type typified by poor Schumann, is not quite as pervasive a figure in popular mythology as the mad scientist, but no less a novelist than Thomas Mann thought highly enough of the stereotype to immortalize it in his ''Doctor Faustus.'' The grandly psychotic genius Adrian Leverkuhn, you will recall, goes stark, staring mad and dies after inventing the 12-tone system and composing his apocalyptic symphonic cantata, ''Lamentation of Doctor Faustus.'' And why not? Don't all readers of musical biographies know that many famous composers have been borderline psychopaths, if not certifiably insane? Haven't generations of music-appreciation writers led us to suspect that there is a mysterious connection between mental abnormality and musical creativity? Who, in fact, would deny that people such as Beethoven and Mahler were pathologically ill and, therefore, creatively fruitful?
Well, Dr. William A. Frosch, for one. Dr. Frosch, who is medical director of the Payne Whitney Clinic at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, recently took a fresh look at the mad-genius myth in a paper presented in May at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Washington. Of Beethoven, whose personal peculiarities so inflamed the Romantic century's imagination, Dr. Frosch notes that the composer ''did experience mood swings superimposed upon a prevailing mild depression; he was clearly eccentric, particularly after he became deaf; he may have been psychotic during the battle for custody of his nephew Karl; but there is no evidence that he was ever manic-depresive.'' Dr. Frosch draws a distinction between mood swings, which may be violent without being grounded in mental disease, and genuine manic-depressive psychosis.
Beethoven must have known something of whatever theories of cyclic insanity were going around in his time, Dr. Frosch believes, and that knowledge ''was part of the imagery that shaped his creativity.'' Beethoven's improvisations at the piano, for which he was famous, were at times in response to requests to describe the character of a well-known person. We are told he could do so vividly and that the audience was often able to recognize the subject of the tone portrait. ''I do not doubt Beethoven's ability to illustrate what he knew about or had observed in others, including manic-depressive illness,'' writes Dr. Frosch.
Of more than a dozen famous composers discussed in this paper, all of them diagnosed as severely disturbed or genuinely psychopathic by previous writers in the field, Dr. Frosch finds in Schumann's history the only really convincing evidence of manic-depressive disease. As early as age 20, the composer who was to create the dual personality of Florestan/Eusebius to dramatize in music his own swings of mood wrote of his longing to throw himself into the Rhine. And 24 years later he actually did so. Schumann's problems have been diagnosed as dementia praecox, organic disease of the brain (most likely general paresis), and manic-depressive illness followed by syphilitic brain disease.
Cleared of imputation of clinical insanity, to Dr. Frosch's way of thinking, are Mozart, Schubert, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Gluck, Liszt, Wagner, Johann Strauss, Jr., Mahler, Pfitzner and Handel. Mental disturbances among this oddly assorted group can be traced to such causes as stroke (Gluck), alcoholism (W.F. Bach), syphilis (Schubert) and chronic renal disease (Mozart). Handel's depressions seem to have been triggered by career reverses, financial disasters, rheumatism and, finally, blindness. ''Liszt and Mahler certainly led unusual and flamboyant lives,'' Dr. Frosch agrees, but they were not psychiatrically ill. ''Mahler was neurotic, and haunted by death, but did not have major affective disease.''
The case of Hugo Wolf is more complicated. He had not been diagnosed for psychiatric problems until age 36 and he died at age 43 from paresis after several hospitalizations and an attempt to drown himself. However, long before his final illness Wolf was infamous as an unpredictable, irascible man who often snarled at his best friends. He lived in poverty and had to work as a music critic -one of the nastiest and least reliable who ever lived - but when the manic mood overtook him could churn out masterly songs dozens at a time. ''Wolf does appear to have had a pre-existent cyclothymic personality,'' Dr. Frosc concedes. In sum, however, the psychiatrist finds no clear reason to link manic-depressive illness or other major mental disturbance with musical creativity: ''That there is a psychology of musical creativity I do not doubt. That there is a meaning to it, perhaps imputed after the fact, I do not doubt. That there is a pathology to it. . .I find no compelling evidence.''
The deep impulses and workings of creativity are likely to remain a mystery. If something as relatively simple as particle physics obstinately refuses to reveal its ultimate mysteries, what hope is there for investigators of Mozart's complexities? Dr. Frosch recognizes the problem: ''Unfortunately, we speak of creativity as though it were a single phenomenon rather than many phenomena. We link many kinds of acts because they are special, perhaps mystifying, not because they are the same. We may even be obfuscating when we speak of 'creative writing.' Is a rapturous lyric derived from the same impulse and skills as a Dickensian novel? Does either have any resemblance in its 'creativity' to a Bach fugue, a Beethoven or Brahms symphony, a Wagner opera, or a piece by Boulez? Perhaps not.''
Perhaps not, because musical composition requires a peculiar combination of inborn talents and learned techniques. ''This complex combination of givens and learned skills,'' in Dr. Frosch's view, ''may preclude significant psychopathology.'' In other words, if I understand, creativity may actually be a form of mental health, not a byproduct of illness. Fortunately or not, Thomas Mann did not see it that way, so poor, deranged Adrian Leverkuhn and the idea of the mad composer live on, if only in literature. Myths that we somehow need do not die easily.
MUSIC VIEW
MUSIC VIEW; PONDERING THE LINK BETWEEN MUSIC AND MADNESS
By Donal Henahan
The other day, in looking through a psychiatrist's report on the supposed connection between manic-depressive mood swings and musical creativity, I was brought up short. These words about Robert Schumann's lifelong history of depression leaped out at me: ''Starting in adolescence he was troubled by repeated attacks of melancholy which can be traced in his and his wife's letters as well as in their joint diary, later kept by Clara alone. For example, in May, 1831, it takes him three weeks to finish a letter . . .''
But Schumann did finish it, didn't he? If I wanted to, I could show you letters in a desk drawer that still lie unfinished after three months or three years, simply because their author is waiting for a sustained manic swing before going at them again. At any rate, let us be fair. A busy man who takes only three weeks to finish a letter (using only pen and ink, remember) deserves our respect. He is not ready for the dead-letter office just yet.
The mad artist, a type typified by poor Schumann, is not quite as pervasive a figure in popular mythology as the mad scientist, but no less a novelist than Thomas Mann thought highly enough of the stereotype to immortalize it in his ''Doctor Faustus.'' The grandly psychotic genius Adrian Leverkuhn, you will recall, goes stark, staring mad and dies after inventing the 12-tone system and composing his apocalyptic symphonic cantata, ''Lamentation of Doctor Faustus.'' And why not? Don't all readers of musical biographies know that many famous composers have been borderline psychopaths, if not certifiably insane? Haven't generations of music-appreciation writers led us to suspect that there is a mysterious connection between mental abnormality and musical creativity? Who, in fact, would deny that people such as Beethoven and Mahler were pathologically ill and, therefore, creatively fruitful?
Well, Dr. William A. Frosch, for one. Dr. Frosch, who is medical director of the Payne Whitney Clinic at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, recently took a fresh look at the mad-genius myth in a paper presented in May at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Washington. Of Beethoven, whose personal peculiarities so inflamed the Romantic century's imagination, Dr. Frosch notes that the composer ''did experience mood swings superimposed upon a prevailing mild depression; he was clearly eccentric, particularly after he became deaf; he may have been psychotic during the battle for custody of his nephew Karl; but there is no evidence that he was ever manic-depresive.'' Dr. Frosch draws a distinction between mood swings, which may be violent without being grounded in mental disease, and genuine manic-depressive psychosis.
Beethoven must have known something of whatever theories of cyclic insanity were going around in his time, Dr. Frosch believes, and that knowledge ''was part of the imagery that shaped his creativity.'' Beethoven's improvisations at the piano, for which he was famous, were at times in response to requests to describe the character of a well-known person. We are told he could do so vividly and that the audience was often able to recognize the subject of the tone portrait. ''I do not doubt Beethoven's ability to illustrate what he knew about or had observed in others, including manic-depressive illness,'' writes Dr. Frosch.
Of more than a dozen famous composers discussed in this paper, all of them diagnosed as severely disturbed or genuinely psychopathic by previous writers in the field, Dr. Frosch finds in Schumann's history the only really convincing evidence of manic-depressive disease. As early as age 20, the composer who was to create the dual personality of Florestan/Eusebius to dramatize in music his own swings of mood wrote of his longing to throw himself into the Rhine. And 24 years later he actually did so. Schumann's problems have been diagnosed as dementia praecox, organic disease of the brain (most likely general paresis), and manic-depressive illness followed by syphilitic brain disease.
Cleared of imputation of clinical insanity, to Dr. Frosch's way of thinking, are Mozart, Schubert, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Gluck, Liszt, Wagner, Johann Strauss, Jr., Mahler, Pfitzner and Handel. Mental disturbances among this oddly assorted group can be traced to such causes as stroke (Gluck), alcoholism (W.F. Bach), syphilis (Schubert) and chronic renal disease (Mozart). Handel's depressions seem to have been triggered by career reverses, financial disasters, rheumatism and, finally, blindness. ''Liszt and Mahler certainly led unusual and flamboyant lives,'' Dr. Frosch agrees, but they were not psychiatrically ill. ''Mahler was neurotic, and haunted by death, but did not have major affective disease.''
The case of Hugo Wolf is more complicated. He had not been diagnosed for psychiatric problems until age 36 and he died at age 43 from paresis after several hospitalizations and an attempt to drown himself. However, long before his final illness Wolf was infamous as an unpredictable, irascible man who often snarled at his best friends. He lived in poverty and had to work as a music critic -one of the nastiest and least reliable who ever lived - but when the manic mood overtook him could churn out masterly songs dozens at a time. ''Wolf does appear to have had a pre-existent cyclothymic personality,'' Dr. Frosc concedes. In sum, however, the psychiatrist finds no clear reason to link manic-depressive illness or other major mental disturbance with musical creativity: ''That there is a psychology of musical creativity I do not doubt. That there is a meaning to it, perhaps imputed after the fact, I do not doubt. That there is a pathology to it. . .I find no compelling evidence.''
The deep impulses and workings of creativity are likely to remain a mystery. If something as relatively simple as particle physics obstinately refuses to reveal its ultimate mysteries, what hope is there for investigators of Mozart's complexities? Dr. Frosch recognizes the problem: ''Unfortunately, we speak of creativity as though it were a single phenomenon rather than many phenomena. We link many kinds of acts because they are special, perhaps mystifying, not because they are the same. We may even be obfuscating when we speak of 'creative writing.' Is a rapturous lyric derived from the same impulse and skills as a Dickensian novel? Does either have any resemblance in its 'creativity' to a Bach fugue, a Beethoven or Brahms symphony, a Wagner opera, or a piece by Boulez? Perhaps not.''
Perhaps not, because musical composition requires a peculiar combination of inborn talents and learned techniques. ''This complex combination of givens and learned skills,'' in Dr. Frosch's view, ''may preclude significant psychopathology.'' In other words, if I understand, creativity may actually be a form of mental health, not a byproduct of illness. Fortunately or not, Thomas Mann did not see it that way, so poor, deranged Adrian Leverkuhn and the idea of the mad composer live on, if only in literature. Myths that we somehow need do not die easily.