Three Great Composers - Compelling Linear Placements...

Three of the great composers come to mind when I consider events in their lives that add, in a rather arcane manner, to the admixture that created them:
Take Franz Schubert, for instance - the legendary Austrian lived for 31 odd years, giving us an enormous lexicon of unfeigned beauty.
It is most interesting to me that during his final illness in that final year, he had sought out and agreed with a master teacher (I believe his name was Schecter) to take harmony and counterpoint lessons with him.
Also consider Modest Moussorgsky and his "Pictures at an Exhibition," one of the more powerful statements of the time.
In the important Henle edition of " Pictures," several errors in basic technique can be noted, such as simple rhythm involving the math that supposedly makes up a particular measure, let alone a handful of other rather peculiar ways of expressing his ideas on paper.
And what about Tchaikowsky? A long time ago I had read in some Russian translation that as a young professor, he was only weeks ahead of the students he was teaching at the Conservatory, and was feverishly striving to maintain his pace; to me, a rather compelling example of artistic Darwinism!