Elias Parish Alvars - Death

Death

On 13 March 1848 the first riots erupted in Vienna and in April amid the general confusion, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde closed suddenly, stopping all payments, and even refusing to pay the salary owed for the last six months. Parish Alvars found himself in serious financial straits. He could not travel to other cities or countries, as they were experiencing similar political difficulties; he had lost most of his pupils, who, as members of noble families, had left town out of fear; musical life had stopped, and the Hofoperntheater burnt down.

During this troubled period, which reached a climax in October, Parish Alvars and his family found refuge in Leopoldstadt, on the outskirts of Vienna (now a part of the city). They lived at Jägerzeile No. 53, on the first floor. On 21 November 1848 he borrowed a hundred florins from his friend and editor August Artaria. His health suddenly worsened, and he died of pneumonia (the documents are, however, not clear on this point) on 25 January 1849. His wife returned with their daughter to London.

Read more about this topic:  Elias Parish Alvars

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    I used to think of death ... like I suppose soldiers think of it: it was a possible thing that I could well avoid by my skill.
    Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)

    The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.
    Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)

    and so this tree—
    Oh, that such our death may be!—
    Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
    To live in happier form again:
    From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
    The artist wrought this loved guitar;
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)