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I like how Richard Strauss, ever the egomaniac, said on his deathbed, "It's a funny thing, Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Death and Transfiguration."

I nominate Louis Vierne, composer and organist at Notre Dame de Paris: Vierne suffered either a stroke or a heart attack (eyewitness reports differ) while giving his 1750th organ recital at Notre-Dame de Paris on the evening of 2 June 1937. He had completed the main concert, which members of the audience said showed him at his full powers—"as well as he has ever played." Directly after he had finished playing his "Stele pour un enfant defunt" from his 'Triptyque' Op 58, the closing section was to be two improvisations on submitted themes. He read the first theme in Braille, then selected the stops he would use for the improvisation. He suddenly pitched forward, and fell off the bench as his foot hit the low "E" pedal of the organ. He lost consciousness as the single note echoed throughout the church. He had thus fulfilled his oft-stated lifelong dream—to die at the console of the great organ of Notre-Dame. Maurice Duruflé, another major French organist and composer, was at his side at the time of his death.

That's so hardcore. But it's kind of true, isn't it? I don't think it's a matter of deserving anything though, just that if you're so concerned about your motives, you're not concerned enough with being awesome and that just hurts your work. It's fine to philosophize about stuff from time to time and know where your priorities are, but if you want to write music if for no better reason than to just write it, there's nothing wrong with that. Who said anyone needed a reason to put sounds together and feel smug about it (on the internet?)

I just love these type of questions. I get that people really like to philosophize about these kind of things, but ultimately it's such a loaded argument that there's no point in even trying. It'd be like asking "Could it be that the entire world before I was born was building up for that event (and that event alone) and when I die it'll fall in despair trying to relive my greatness???" If you think that sounds narcissistic, then just imagine what that does when you use that exact same reasoning for some random piece of music some dead guy wrote hundreds of years ago!

This probably doesn't constitute as a "best" death, but more tragic: Anton Webern was shot while smoking a cigar by an American soldier in 1945 in Austria. The soldier apparently died later filled with sorrow and remorse. P.S.: Best composer death, fictionally, is the death of Mozart in Amadeus.

A few other nominees: Ernest Chausson, who literally "hit the wall" (while riding a bike downhill). Enrique Granados, whose successful musical career was fatally torpedoed (by a German U-boat during WW 1). Alessandro Stradella, targeted by a hitman over his musical lessons (or more precisely, over his habit of moving into extramusical issues with his female pupils).

They might've rounded it; he probably really died at 13 minutes to midnight. Or else we're meant to take away the 2 rattles from the 15 minutes. Or something else 13

I nominate Arnold Schoenberg, who convinced himself into dying on a Friday the 13th, out of his own superstitions: The composer had triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13), and according to friend Katia Mann, he feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13. He dreaded his sixty-fifth birthday in 1939 so much that a friend asked the composer and astrologer Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg's horoscope. Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that the year was dangerous, but not fatal. But in 1950, on his seventy-sixth birthday, an astrologer wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was a critical one: 7 + 6 = 13. This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. He died on Friday, 13 July 1951, shortly before midnight. Schoenberg had stayed in bed all day, sick, anxious and depressed. His wife Gertrud reported in a telegram to her sister-in-law Ottilie the next day that Arnold died at 11:45 pm, 15 minutes before midnight. In a letter to Ottilie dated 4 August 1951, Gertrud explained, "About a quarter to twelve I looked at the clock and said to myself: another quarter of an hour and then the worst is over. Then the doctor called me. Arnold's throat rattled twice, his heart gave a powerful beat and that was the end".