Eccentricity and Composers

We all know them, they are the people who make our lives interesting. They are the ones who make us say “wow”, or “I can’t believe people choose to live like that” or merely laugh to assuage our discomfort. Some people call them eccentric, some call them mad, and there many of them in the histories of classical music. Many of them gained this reputation because of their compositions, and others through their personalities and decorum. But either way we all know them, and in this series of posts I intend to explore those composers. 

Perhaps its fitting that many of these composers date from the “Romantic Era” and later, when the myth of the Romantic artist had manifested itself, the archetype being the ol’ Ludwig van. Romantic artists tended to co-opt earlier musicians and repackage them as their own, although not without some vindication. Artists wanted to see themselves as tremendously feeling individuals, as national heroes, and as great innovators who wiped away all that was old and corrupt to usher in what was new and exciting. It was only natural that this idea was taken to excess (in some cases before the nineteenth century was even finished). 

The next post will concern itself with the most charming of eccentrics, Erik Satie. 

Painting: Die Lebenstufen (1835) by Caspar David Freidrich. This is the same author of the more famous Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, an image constantly used on album covers of classical works. 

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