Late in his life the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana, like Beethoven, lost his hearing

and, like Schumann, went mad. As he turned 50, Smetana wrote to a friend, "My ears are quite healthy externally. But the inner apparatus - that admirable keyboard of our inner organ - is damaged, out of tune. The hammers have got stuck, and no tuner has so far succeeded in repairing the damage." The next decade was a slow torture for Smetana, as he lost his speech and his memory and was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 60.

But in the midst of his agony Smetana wrote one of the most sublime chamber works in the repertory, his String Quartet No. 1, which he called "From My Life," and in which he musically depicts the terrifying moment when his "admirable keyboard" began to fail him.

((I didn't know about his disability and early death; had I known, I'd have appreciated my favorite piece even more. ))