A very nice and timely post by Pliable about pianist John Ogdon. Ogdon is one of my favorite pianists, perhaps the best of the Manchester group, and a fine composer in his own right. It's too bad more of his music isn't well known or oft performed.
"But if Ogdon’s creativity blazed across the heavens like a meteor, sadly his mental health spluttered like a dysfunctional firework. He made three attempts at suicide, one was by cutting his own throat. There were long stays in the specialist psychiatric Maudsley Hospital in London, interspersed by long periods of depression. There was electroshock therapy and lithium treatment. But ironically Ogdon died on August 1st 1989, aged 52, of natural causes connected with undiagnosed diabetes."
Read the rest of this fine post here. And be sure to follow the link to the Ogdon Foundation.
No comments:
Post a Comment