jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (07/10/85)
In one of the recent postings debating whether or not J. S. Bach is as good as Kate Bush, someone said something like "Bach lost his eyesight writing <some piece of music>." What kind of problem did Bach have with his eyesight, exactly? Can you get this same problem from looking at a terminal's CRT for too long? (This really is a serious question, not a joke...) Mail to me and I will summarize if there are any replies. Thanks. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 Gur ArgArjf... n qlvat pbzzhavpngvba sbez?
segre@uicsl.UUCP (07/23/85)
If my memory serves me correctly [from my undergraduate music history class] Bach had cataracts removed surgically about a year and a half before his death in 1750. The surgery was not successful, and he essentially lost all sight. Some biographers maintain that the botched surgery actually led to the decline of his health and jos eventual death at age 65. The surgery was performed in Leipzig by a surgeon who had just arrived from London and was considered a leading authority in this type of surgery (for his day, anyway). His biographers usually attribute his failed eyesight to many years of copying music and reading by candlelight. Although he recovered some of his eyesight ten days before his death, his final composition (a choral on a hymn tune which is appended to The Art of Fugue) was dictated to a friend (or perhaps his son, I can't remember). He never did finish the huge quadruple theme which was to finish the Art of Fugue...he had just managed to introduce the third theme, which was a musical reference to his own name, e.g. B-A-C-h. An excellent reference on the life of Bach is "The Bach Reader" which is, I believe, published by Norton (I can't remember the author, but I could go look if someone is interested - who knows where I put that thing!). ===== Alberto Segre Artificial Intelligence Research Group Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ARPA: uicsl!segre@uiuc.ARPA CSNET: uicsl!segre@uiuc.CSNET UUCP: ...!{ihnp4, convex, pur-ee}!uiucdcs!uicsl!segre