... Leonard Cohen ...

When Leonard Cohen’s family announced last week that he had died at 82, it gave no cause. Although the poet and songwriter had been open about his failing health in recent months, fans knew little other than what The New Yorker reported in its weekly radio show, that Mr. Cohen had been battling cancer. On Wednesday, however, Mr. Cohen’s manager, Robert B. Kory, offered more detail about his client’s death. “Leonard Cohen died during his sleep following a fall in the middle of the night on Nov. 7,” Mr. Kory said in a statement. “The death was sudden, unexpected and peaceful.” In the months before his death, Mr. Cohen was busy. Even as his body was growing frail and he was experiencing pains in his back, he was working diligently to bring several projects to completion, according to friends and colleagues. In addition to finishing his last album, “You Want It Darker,” which was released in October, he was working on two other musical projects and a book of poetry. “He felt the window getting narrower,” said Patrick Leonard, a producer and songwriter who had worked closely with Mr. Cohen on his last three albums. “He wanted to use the time as productively as he could to finish the work that he was so good at and so devoted to.” Mr. Cohen, whose working pace was slow — he took five years to write his most famous song, “Hallelujah” — had been extremely productive in recent years, touring steadily between 2008 and 2013 and releasing three studio albums since 2012. Some of that work, his collaborators say, was a matter of polishing material he had been working on for many years. Mr. Leonard said that when Mr. Cohen died, they were at work on an album of string arrangements of his songs and another of songs that he said were inspired by old rhythm-and-blues grooves. Describing their working method, Mr. Leonard, who has collaborated with Madonna, Pink Floyd and many other artists, said that he would sometimes get emails through the night in which Mr. Cohen tweaked lyrics. Then Mr. Cohen joked about it in further emails the next day. “I feel really grateful that I have been able to have my email ding,” Mr. Leonard said, “and there’s a new Leonard Cohen lyric.”