Do you think physical attractiveness (or lack of it) has played a role in composers music?
You know, I just read a few chapters from The Rest is Noise: Listening to Twentieth-Century Music by Alex Ross, and he says that upheavals in a composer’s life often lead to quite astounding results. I don’t know if it’s about physical attractiveness, but in that book, Schoenberg apparently split from tonality right after his wife cheated on him with one of his students. Before, he was experimenting with the idea, but never quite dared to take the leap. I don’t know if that has anything to do with how the world perceived his attractiveness, but I suspect he thought himself less attractive when his wife left him.
