Joaquin Rodrigo who lived from 1901 to 1999, wrote possibly the worlds
most popular work for guitar and orchestra. He contacted diptheria at age
3 leaving him nearly blind. You can hear the entire Adagio movement from
his "Concierto de Aranjuez" at
http://music.mpr.org/features/9907_rodrigo/rafiles/rodrigo_adagio.ram and
read a brief bio at http://music.mpr.org/features/9907_rodrigo/index.html.
"The Aranjuez actually was written at what they called the worst time of
their life. They had just lost their first baby. And the whole second
movement [Adagio] was his way of conversing with God."
---
At http://music.mpr.org/features/0105_perlman/index.shtml you can read a
little bit about Itzhak Perlman, whose legs are paralyzed by polio. His
courage and good humor was quite evident when fell onstage.
"As he swung his right leg up—I can't say exactly what happened next, but
for some reason his right leg missed the podium altogether, and his right
crutch flew out with it.
He landed hard. Face-down on the stage between his podium and the
conductor's, his arms still in the crutches, the upturned soles of his
shoes facing the audience.
The applause stopped as if it'd been guillotined. And the sound—that's
what I'll remember years from now—1,500 people in a choral gasp, then pin-
drop silence.
Perlman didn't move. Maybe four or five seconds he didn't move. The
concertmaster, the conductor, and the principal cellist all jumped toward
him to help. Then he shot a hand out to wave them away. The next moment,
he spun himself around and sat up. With a big smile on his face.
"And you think the piece I'm about to play is hard!" he said.
The place went nuts, none of us knowing if he'd broken bones or hit his
head or if there'd be a performance at all. But he started to get one
crutch under him, and he asked us, "Do you want to wait?"
More applause, and over the course of the next three, four, maybe five
minutes, we saw a big piece of what his life must really be like. What
it's like when he's not the World's Greatest Violinist, but just a 55-
year-old guy who got polio when he was a kid."
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Then there is Tchaikovski, who wrote probably the most popular and
familiar classical music in the world which is so well loved, that it is
performed world wide during the celebration of Christmas. I refer to the
famous "Nutcracker". There is a bit of controversy over his death, but
evidence supports the notion that he died of cholera which is what killed
his mother when he was 14. You can read more at
http://music.mpr.org/features/0105_tchiakovsky/index.shtml and at
http://www.incwell.com/Biographies/Tchaikovsky.html.
r
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Nothing beats the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with DLT tapes.