Chopin's cause of death

[Angela]

See:
https://www.archaeology.org/news/6108-171117-chopin-enlarged-heart

"WARSAW, POLAND—In 2014, scientists led by Michal Witt of the Institute of Human Genetics at the Polish Academy of Sciences were given access to Polish composer Frédéric Chopin’s heart, which had been removed from his body after his death in Paris in 1849 and taken to Warsaw, where it has remained. According to a report in Live Science, the records of Chopin’s original autopsy have been lost, but the researchers briefly examined the organ, and photographed it, in an effort to determine the cause of his death at age 39. The heart, preserved in a liquid thought to be cognac, was “enlarged and floppy.” Witt said the team concluded Chopin’s immediate cause of death was pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane around the heart, a likely complication of tuberculosis. "

The underlying cause, of course, was tuberculosis, as we've long known. What a scourge it was, particularly in the 19th century.

Poor man, what a toll it took on him.

The Best of Chopin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygy721nzRc

 

[LeBrok]

39, so young and so sick. Incredibly he could muster some strength to compose such great pieces of music.

 

[Ygorcs]

What's remarkable is that even his most melancholy music sounds passionate, young and full of feeling and life, not the music of a battered sick man. In my opinion he wrote the most remarkable and immediately moving piano music. He knew how to go straight into the listener's heart without making it sound too sugary.