9-th, 2004 - 14: 1   (Posted By: Webmaster)
Claudio J. D. Brindis de Sala    

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In 1875 he went to Haiti as the director of the Musical Conservatory there, after which he made a tour of Central America and Venezuela and returned to Cuba, with many decorations. Visiting Europe again, he was invited to the courts of some of the leading monarchs. The delicate hands of princesses applauded him and pinned roses in the lapels of his bemedaled dress suit, while kings affixed still more decorations there. France gave him the Legion of Honor. Berlin was the scene of his greatest triumph. Emperor William I bestowed on him the coveted Order of the Black Eagle, made him a German citizen, raised him to the rank of baron, and graced his marriage to a noble woman with his presence. But combined with his artistic fire was a wanderlust that made it impossible for him to live a domestic life. In spite of the entreaties of friends, he left Germany for the West Indies and South America, where a careless life combined with his eccentricities started him downward. Once, in Mexico City, while probably drunk, he wrecked the choicest room in his hotel, "just to leave a remembrance in my having been in the land of the hidalgos," he said. For money he had the contempt of the born artist. Once when a rich mine owner offered him 800 francs in gold to play for his guests at a soiree, he demanded 1000 and would not accept less though he was penniless and had not eaten that day. That night, however, when the party was at its height, he walked in, played for the guests in his most brilliant style, and disappeared before anyone could thank him.
For one so whimsical and heedless of money there is usually but one end. He sank lower and lower, forgotten by the brilliant circles in which he once moved. He fell a victim to tuberculosis and alcohol, and on June 2, 1911, his body was discovered in a miserable hovel in Buenos Aires.

Unknown, he was taken to the morgue and placed on a slab between a suicide and a thief. About to make an autopsy, the medical students noticed that he wore a corset. Wondering who this vagabond could be who was corseted like a society beau, they searched his clothing and discovered a German passport with the name: Chevalier de Brindis, Baron de Sala.
Within its pages was a touching souvenir of the time when he walked as an idol amid scented salons and when his elegance in dress had earned him the name of "The D'Annunzio of the dress suit and the four-in-hand."
To his funeral came one society woman who had loved him in his better days. Her flowers were the only tribute on his pauper grave in the Cemetery de Oeste.

In 1930 his body was brought to Havana by the Cuban government and interred with honors.
Three of the children born to his German wife became violinists at the German court and were last heard of in Germany in 1932. He also had an illegitimate daughter in Buenos Aires and another in Mexico City.

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