The music critic and journalist Stephen Pedersen of Halifax replied to my
query on Dr. Georg Tintner's death and has allowed me to circulate his
response. Here it is:

   Dear Mr. Phi:

   Thank you for your letter.  Dr.  Tintner was diagnosed with cancer
   six years ago.  It had metastasized and he began to lose ground
   rapidly in recent weeks.  He was in a great deal of pain and was
   trying to manage it with morphine and other painkillers.  He apparently
   began to lose weight at an alarming rate of one and a half pounds
   every few days, literally wasting away with the disease.

   In his typically extraordinary way, he concealed his illness from
   all but his closest friends, although it had become apparent to many
   that something was not right with him.

   The day of his suicide he had been attempting to read a Bruckner
   score for a CD he had to edit, and found, I have been told, that he
   couldn't make sense of it.  It wasn't a brain tumour apparently, as
   some had feared, but some chemical alteration which affected his
   nervous system.  At any rate he had not long to live, perhaps six
   weeks..  Suicide appeared to him the honourable way out of a life
   which could no longer support the music by which he had always lived.

   It is a terrible tragedy.  And, like you, the entire music community
   here is in deep shock.  I think he would have preferred an assisted
   suicide but didn't want, perhaps, to lay that burden on his wife.

   At any rate, this exit seemed to him the right one, and he took it.

   I know this may not be much comfort to you, but will perhaps help
   you understand the circumstances.

   Sincerely
   Stephen Pedersen

"D. T. Phi" <[log in to unmask]>