Summary

    Reviewing the results of our study, we find that we can confirm Juda's finding that among the twenty‑seven German composers investigated, there were only three who by current standards were classifiable as psychotic at any time in their lives: Gluck, Schumann and Wolf. In addition, Mozart had a terminal uraemia with some delirious symptoms. All the three men, and Mozart too, suffered from organic disorders which carry no implication of constitutional instability.

    The incidence of endogenous psychoses is low, Schumann's recurrent manic‑depressive illness and Hugo Wolf's less typical phasic disturbances being the only fairly certain cases, and neither of a degree ever to require hospitalization. It is probable that Handel was a markedly cyclothymic personality, and could be classified as belonging to the same genotype, but it would not be justifiable to regard him as ever having had an illness of psychotic intensity.

 

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