Composer Johannes Brahms may have produced heavenly sounds when awake, but his irritability and "unearthly" snoring suggest that he suffered from a common disorder: sleep apnea. Mitchell Margolis, a pulmonologist at the University of Pennsylvania's Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia, offers this posthumous diagnosis in the July issue of the journal Chest.
Heavy snoring is one of the most obvious symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), in which anatomical irregularities obstruct the upper airway and interrupt breathing. Although Brahms had no wife to complain about noisy nights, a singer who shared a room with him on concert tours described being kept awake by "the most unearthly noises issuing from his nasal and vocal organs." The composer, who died in 1897 at age 64, also had a reputation for dozing off at odd times, often in public places such as cafes and theatres--a clue that he may have been sleep-deprived. He was also known for being short-tempered and prickly, common signs of sleep disruption.
Brahms also developed certain risk factors known to exacerbate the symptoms of OSA: He drank heavily, got fat, and had a thick neck. (He could not wear collared shirts after age 50.) Other, more tenuous links include rumors of impotence and evidence of a possible stroke near the time of his death. Both have been associated with episodes of OSA, which lower blood oxygen levels and cause heart irregularities.
Margolis has come up with "a plausible hypothesis," says pulmonologist Safwan Bader, president of the American Sleep Apnea Association. But Brahms's loss may have been society's gain, Margolis speculates: The sleepiness and irritation may have "contributed to lifelong alienation from friends and marriage, thereby nurturing his determined devotion to the creation of his immortal music."
