You all have probably heard this sad news. I did not know about this pianist and just read some of the news regarding her sudden death.
I have a question regarding the information here:

Mihaela Ursuleasa
27.09.1978 - 02.08.2012
The pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa was found deceased in her apartment in Vienna, her adopted city, in the morning of the 2nd of August 2012. The forensic doctor pronounced a natural death caused by a cerebral commotion.
She was only 33 years old (a magical number).

Does anybody know what that last thing, "a magical number", means?

There's nothing "natural" about dying at age 33! I do not know what a "cerebral commotion" is either. A typo?

I have heard of her but would be hard-pressed to give you any further details.

I have heard of this commotion; it seems a synonym for concussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotio_cerebri

Not so natural a death I would say, unless they mean she was not murdered and did not take her own life. As for the numbers, they are not so magical: I did better and at one point I had 33, 66 and 99 as numbers.

I'm guess she had a brain aneurism.

But back to those numbers.....33 what? 66 what? 99 what? I think numbers are interesting, but I don't get what we're talking about..... What's so 'magical' here?

Let us see what Eddy has to say on the matter.



That is what they said of me at the time. 99 stands for 1999. The rest you can figure out...

Well, I suppose it means you were born in '66 and your 33rd birthday was in '99. But that's not really all that magical. Quite a few people alive today were born in 1966, probably somewhere between 1% and 2% of the world population, and each and every one of them turned 33 in 1999. Who'd have imagined that?
Or perhaps your 66 doesn't just stand for 1966 but also means you were born on the 6th of June. That would make you 365 times as special as someone who was "only" born in 1966.
I note your login name includes '66', but that in itself is not enough to suggest how likely it is that you were born in 1966 or on the 6th of June or both.

I don't know what's so special about 33. Perhaps it has roots in Rumanian folklore. Perhaps it's just "twice as special" as 3, which is pretty special because, well, it just is. Even apart from the Holy Trinity. Or perhaps there's a personal or family connection.

I think 7 is pretty special, together with its multiples. My parents, my sister, and I were all born in different months, but both my parents were born on the 7th day of their birth months. Put 7 and 7 together and you get 14, so I was born on the 14th. Guess when my sister was born. Yes, on the 28th.

That's neat! Both my parents were born on the 2nd, but I came out on the 1st. Oh well....it was close.

I remember listening to this pianist on YT, playing Enescu IIRC, marveling at her full-blooded pianism and drooling over her photos - at least on her PR pics she was hugely attractive. How sad that someone so talented should die so young. Scary too, making you realize it can simply happen to anyone, anytime.

Whatever happens to you or me, we are not going to die at 33.

These days every single musician looks like a model, until you see them in the flesh and you realise what makeup and computer manipulation can do. Even Frankenstein's Creature can be made to look like Alan Delon, if you know which buttons to push. I saw a viedeo of her today and she looked just like a... I will let you guess that one.

A superb musician, however, and she was fist taught by her father, a Gypsy musician, albeit a violinist, so she had the benefit of two different traditions.

Sorry to hear of Mihaela's passing. My prayers are with her family who are grieving their loss. I do not know of her as well as other famous players, I read she is from Romania. I wonder if she ever gave tours in the US? I will have to look around for recordings of her performing.

The beloved of the gods die young.