Mozart, that gifted prodigy, that jovial good fellow, that hard-working composer, was worn out by his work and his privations when but thirty-five years old. He died in 1791. Though the greatest composer of his time, he suffered for proper financial support, and at times for sufficient nourishment. He was the victim of many conspiracies on the part of less talented musicians. He wrote his immortal operas; others profited by them. He worked; they laughed. His life was a labor to keep soul and body together and at his death he left his family without inheritance. So little was he missed that his last resting place was quickly lost sight of.
Beethoven, that rugged and self contained spirit, died in 1827. His father was a drunkard. His early home life was not the most pleasant, and even in later years he never knew the joys of a quiet home. He lived by himself and put forth the mighty children of his brain in solitude. Händel, Beethoven and Schubert form a trio of bachelor composers. Beethoven's financial circumstances were moderate, and he considered himself a poor man, though he was better situated than Mozart or Schubert in that respect.
Schubert, one of the most musical geniuses that ever lived, died in 1828, at the age of thirty-one. He was a school teacher, with hardly enough income to keep soul and body together. He was so poor that he sold the manuscripts of his songs for tenpence, and so unknown that he saw comparatively few of his great compositions published Dying almost alone, in great poverty,—yet before his death, sitting up and composing merry strains to bring in a mere pittance,—his life and its end were particularly pathetic.
Schumann's disposition was of that intense nature that borders on insanity; and insanity was the end of his busy life. He died in 1856, honored and beloved. His wife still lives, now (1894) seventy-five years of age,—a connecting link to the times of Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn.
