Charles-Henri Valentin Alkan (1813-1888, whose real name was Morhange) was a French pianist, a friend of Liszt, Hugo, Chopin and Georges Sand. He wrote virtuosic piano music which often predates the ideas of Liszt and Brahms. His output includes pieces for pédalier, or pedal-piano. These pieces include footwork as difficult as the finger work; some pieces are four-part fugues for pedals alone. He died as curiously as he lived, crushed by a bookcase which fell on him while trying to remove a volume of the Talmud from its top shelf.
Exponent of cool jazz trumpet Chet Baker
died falling, or possibly jumping, from an Amsterdam hotel window.
The American composer Marc Blitzstein, 1905-1964, died in Port-de-France in Martinique,
from a brain injury, suffered during an altercation near a waterfront bar.
Late one evening, following a heavy drinking session, he had picked up three Portuguese sailors.
Exactly what happened next is unclear, but it seems that whilst travelling between bars,
one slipped into a nearby alley with Blitzstein in response to his sexual advances.
The other two followed and all three robbed him,
beat him up and stripped him of all his clothes except his shirt and socks.
See Marc Blitzstein for more.
Clifford Brown was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter,
was a principal figure in the hard-bop idiom.
On June 1956, Brown and Richie Powell were being driven from Philadelphia to Chicago by Powell's wife Nancy for the band's next appearance.
On a rainy night on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, she lost control of the car and it went off the road.
All three were killed in the resulting crash.
It was Brown’s second wedding anniversary, and his wife’s 22nd birthday.
Louis Cazette (1887-1922), a light tenor, died from blood poisoning
when he cut his finger while repairing a bicycle puncture, developing tetanus.
Albert da Costa first studied as a baritone, then as a tenor at Juilliard.
He sang at the Met in New York for eight seasons between 1954 and 1962.
He died in an automobile accident in Kolding, Denmark on 8 November, 1967.
Da Costa was one of the “Three Tristans”,
see Musical Oddities
Marie Collier who took over from Maria Callas in the roll of
Tosca fell to her death from the window of her fourth floor apartment in London.
A case of ‘Life Imitating Art’.
Mike Edwards, cellist and an early member of the Electric Light Orchestra left in January 1975 of his own choosing, to become a Buddhist.
He changed his name to Deva Pramada.
His eccentric cello playing (fingering the cello strings with an orange or grapefruit)
and bizarre costumes were a major ingredient of the early ELO touring band.
In early September, 2010, he was killed when a giant 600kg bale of hay tumbled down a steep Devonshire field
before it smashed through a hedge and landed on the front of his van.
He died instantly.
Sam Franko, American violinist died in New York, from a skull fracture resulting from a fall.
Blind Lemon Jefferson, was found,
frozen and dead on the streets of Chicago, in a particularly sever snowstorm.
There are several stories regarding his death:
he may have become lost on leaving a friend’s party, he may have been abandoned by his chauffeur,
or he may have suffered a heart attack and froze in the snow.
Polish composer Mieczyslaw Karlowicz
(1876-1909) was killed in an avalanche in while skiing in the Tatra Mountains.
American pianist Eugene List (1918-1985) while at home planning his own 50th anniversary concert in Carnegie Hall,
accidentally fell on the staircase of his New York home.
The subsequent autopsy revealed he died instantly of a broken neck.
In 1820, at the house of his fellow singer, Garcia, buffo tenor Guiseppe Naldi
was demonstrating a new method of cooking by steam, with a portable apparatus for that purpose.
Due to a malfunction in the apparatus, an explosion took place,
the lid hitting him on the head, killing him instantaneously.
His friend Michael Kelly best tells the story:
‘His ill stars took him to Paris, where one day, just before dinner at his friend Garcia’s house,
he was shewing the method of cooking of cooking by steam, with a portable apparatus for that purpose;
unfortunately, in consequence of some derangement of the machinery, an explosion took place,
by which he was instantly killed.’
[Obviously this was a primitive pressure cooker, the lid hitting Naldi on the head.]