The manner by which music-related people met their demise has always been a source of fascination. It seems that musicians are not prone to death by old age. Our friend Nicholas Slonimsky gleefully chronicled their odd send-offs in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians: Lully, gangrene after piercing his foot with a staff while conducting. Music writer Arthur Eaglefield Hull threw himself under a train. French violinist Jean Marie Leclair was found in his own house, with no sign of struggle, stabbed to death. Seems his estranged wife was a professional engraver who owned sharp tools.
Now the highly respected Beethoven Journal published by the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University in California has published an article theorizing that Beethoven received a fatal dose of lead from a lead-laced poultice administered by his well-meaning (or WAS he?) doctor.
Our favorite headline for this article: Who Knew Beethoven Was Into Heavy Metal? (Philadelphia Daily News.)