Deaths
- January 1 – Hank Williams, country musician, 29
- January 18 – Arthur Wood, composer, 78
- February 2 – Gustav Strube, conductor and composer, 75
- March 5
- Sergei Prokofiev, composer, 61
- E. T. Cook, organist and composer, 72
- March 19 – Irène Bordoni, singer and actress, 68
- March 29 – Arthur Fields, singer and songwriter, 64
- April 23 – Peter DeRose, Tin Pan Alley composer, 53
- April 29 – Kiki, "The Queen of Montparnasse", 51 (drug- and alcohol-related)
- April 30 – Lily Brayton, musical theatre star, 76
- May 15 – Mabel Love, dancer, 78
- May 16 – Django Reinhardt, jazz guitarist, 43 (brain hemorrhage)
- May 30 – Dooley Wilson, actor, singer and pianist, 67
- June 10 – Grzegorz Fitelberg, conductor, violinist and composer, 73
- June 25 – Jules Van Nuffel, musicologist and composer, 70
- July 5 – Titta Ruffo, operatic baritone, 76
- August 14 – Friedrich Schorr, operatic bass-baritone, 64
- August 29 – Darrell Fancourt, bass-baritone, 67
- September 1 – Jacques Thibaud, violinist, 72
- September 21 – Roger Quilter, composer, 75
- October 3 – Sir Arnold Bax, composer, 69
- October 8 – Kathleen Ferrier, English contralto, 41 (cancer)
- October 18 – Marguerite d'Alvarez, operatic contralto, exact age unknown
- October 27 – Eduard Künneke, composer, 68
- November 10 – Theodora Morse, lyricist, 70
- November 18 – Ruth Crawford Seeger, composer, 52
- November 21 – Larry Shields, jazz musician, 60
- November 26 – Ivor Atkins, organist and choirmaster, 83
- December 5
- Noel Mewton-Wood, pianist, 31 (suicide by poisoning)
- Jorge Negrete, singer and actor, 42 (hepatitis)
- December 9 – Issay Dobrowen, pianist, conductor and composer, 62
- December 11 – Albert Coates, conductor and composer, 71
- December 29 – Violet MacMillan, Broadway star, 66
Read more about this topic: 1953 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)