Talk:Noel Mewton-Wood

Mahler?
What on earth were the Mahler works in his repertoire? Apart from piano accompaniments to songs, the only piano music I know of that Mahler wrote was the one movement Piano Quartet in A minor. Did Mewton-Wood play this? And with whom? -- JackofOz (talk) 12:13, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've had a good look around the web, and found zero information about this. I'm treating it as an error and have removed it.  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I used two sources to create this article. The New Grove entry, and the NYT article. That is where Mahler would have been mentioned. I no longer have access to either. Outriggr (talk) 03:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Correction to the above: it is the "Times" article, not "NYT", as cited (in-text) in this article. Outriggr (talk) 04:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe one of those sources referred to Mahler. But this is one of those cases where we need to apply commonsense and question the veracity of the source.  I have since checked, and confirmed that Mahler's sole extant works involving piano are the Piano Quartet movement, which is very little played, and some songs, again very infrequently heard.  In both cases, other performers would have been involved in performances/recordings, but we say nothing about this.  Mahler wrote zero solo piano music.  Unless we can come up with a source that says otherwise, the Mahler reference will need to remain out of the article.  --  JackofOz (talk) 05:07, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. I just wanted to provide a bit of background as to where this bit came from. I'm sure these sources are as capable of error as we are. :) Outriggr (talk) 05:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * He played Mahler's 3rd Symphony as a piano duet apparently with Norman Del Mar. see http://www.buywell.com/booklets/4763390.pdf150.101.215.237 (talk) 03:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * OK. However, it seems that was by way of teaching the symphony to Norman Del Mar.  It was never part of his performing repertoire, i.e. no paying audience member ever heard it.  Lots of performers play things in private that they don't expose their audiences to.  I'm still inclined to keep it out.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree with you and your reasoning, however, removing Mahler from the list smacks of original reasearch. We should be simply quoting (or referring) to 3rd party sources (Even if sometimes they don't seem right). Additionally NM-W would have been familiar with Mahler's songs as an accompianist and accompianists have repertoires too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jschnur (talk • contribs) 01:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I did mention those accompaniments first up. And later. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  01:09, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Manner of death
We say he "drank" hydrogen cyanide. I'm reading Paul Kildea's Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century (2013), where he says (p. 386) that Mewton-Wood "dashed a tumbler of gin and cyanide against his apartment wall and ingested the fumes". Same outcome, but very different from "drinking" the cyanide. Which version is correct? And if Kildea is right, wouldn't this leave open the possibility of an unintentional and accidental death? If he really wanted to do away with himself, drinking it would have been the quickest and surest way. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  01:09, 12 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Update. I've come across this trailer for a doco on him. It says that "on December 3rd, 1953" (0:28) he drank the poison.  Now, 3 Dec 1953 was a Thursday; he was discovered on the evening of 5 Dec, a Saturday.  Every other source I've seen says he died on 5 December, but is it possible he actually died 2 days earlier and was not found till later?  Cyanide doesn't take 2 days to kill its victims, does it? Maybe the doco makers got the detail wrong.


 * Then at 1:30 is a newspaper headline "Dying pianist dashed glass at wall". So, that says he was already suffering from having drunk the stuff.  I think we can put that bit of the story to rest.


 * But then I found this:
 * Near the end of 1953 Fedricks complained of severe pains in his stomach, but Mewton-Wood, being used to his companion’s hypochondria, and having himself meanwhile studied medicine, chose to disregard these symptoms. Unfortunately Fedricks died suddenly, and Mewton-Wood, only thirty-one at the time, suffered devastating guilt. He took an overdose of aspirin but was discovered by friends before causing himself any harm. However a short time later, after writing forty-three letters to friends, he poured a glass of gin, and swallowed cyanide. It is impossible to imagine the hideous death he must have suffered from this corrosive substance.


 * So, it definitely seems to have been premeditated. I’d love to see the full doco "Death by Piano" to find out just exactly what the court/coroner's records say about all this, particularly when he is believed to have died (as distinct from when he was found). I wonder if any of those 43 letters were dated, and if any are still extant. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 01:24, 30 April 2016 (UTC)