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Date: | Thu, 7 Oct 1999 10:28:06 -0300 |
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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]>
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