11/09/2026
🎶”Music When Great Composers Lost Their Sight” 👁️👂
From Light into Darkness: How Three Great Composers Lost Their Sight
- Dr Chua 12/9/2026
For a composer, which matters more — hearing or sight?
Most of us know Beethoven’s story. As his hearing faded, he continued to compose extraordinary music by drawing on memory, imagination and his ability to “hear” an entire orchestra in his mind.
But sight mattered too. A composer needed to read scores, write thousands of notes by hand, conduct musicians and perform before an audience. For Bach, Handel and Liszt, failing eyesight became a serious obstacle — and in Bach’s case, the treatment may have been worse than the disease.
🎼 Johann Sebastian Bach
🎧 Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS7wXbMFE2I
By the end of the 1740s, Bach’s eyesight had deteriorated badly, most likely because of cataracts. In 1750, he placed his trust in a travelling English eye surgeon named John Taylor.
Taylor operated on Bach twice within a matter of weeks. The procedure was probably “couching”: a needle was inserted into the eye to push the cloudy lens away from the pupil. The cataract was not actually removed, and even when the operation appeared successful, infection, inflammation, glaucoma and retinal damage were common.
There was no modern anaesthesia, no antisepsis, no operating microscope and no artificial lens to restore the eye’s focusing power. Treatment afterwards could include bloodletting, purgatives and unusual eye preparations.
The operations failed, and Bach was left blind. He suffered a stroke and died only a few months later. We cannot say with certainty that the surgery caused his death, but contemporary reports blamed the “unhappy consequences” of the operation.
🎼 George Frideric Handel
🎧 Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h4mAceHmrI
Handel began losing the sight in his left eye while composing his final oratorio, Jephtha. In the original score, he stopped writing beside the words “How dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees” and added a note explaining that he could not continue because the sight in his left eye had weakened.
It is one of the most moving coincidences in musical history: a composer writing about darkness as his own world was becoming dark.
Handel underwent unsuccessful eye operations and eventually became blind. John Taylor later claimed to have treated him, although historians still debate exactly who performed each operation.
Blindness did not silence Handel. He continued attending performances and could still play the organ with assistance, relying on memory and improvisation. Shortly before his death in 1759, he attended a performance of his beloved Messiah.
🎼 Franz Liszt
🎧 Listen: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qiJcXAuOMNU&list=RDqiJcXAuOMNU&start_radio=1&ra=m
More than a century later, Franz Liszt also developed cataracts. His failing sight made reading and writing music increasingly difficult, and he sometimes needed help walking onto the stage.
Fortunately, eye surgery had advanced greatly since Bach’s time. Liszt was examined by the respected German ophthalmologist Alfred Graefe, and cataract surgery was planned for September 1886.
Liszt, however, was uneasy about the operation. In the end, he never had to face it: he died in July 1886, just weeks before the planned surgery.
👁️ The flamboyant “Chevalier” John Taylor
John Taylor was no ordinary doctor. He travelled across Europe in a grand carriage decorated with paintings of eyes, delivered theatrical speeches and gave himself impressive titles. He treated royalty, aristocrats and famous musicians — and was exceptionally skilled at advertising himself.
His confidence, however, often exceeded his results. He claimed success even when patients were left blind and sometimes moved on before the bandages were removed. His treatments reportedly included bloodletting, laxatives and eye drops made from ingredients such as powdered sugar, baked salt and even pigeon’s blood.
The writer Samuel Johnson summed him up rather neatly as an example of how far “impudence may carry ignorance”.
In a final twist worthy of a novel, some accounts say that Taylor himself became blind towards the end of his life.
Today, cataract surgery is one of the most frequently performed and successful operations in medicine. The cloudy natural lens is removed through a tiny incision and replaced with a clear artificial lens — usually allowing the patient to return home on the same day.
One cannot help wondering: if Bach, Handel and Liszt had enjoyed the benefits of modern eye care, how many more masterpieces might they have left us?
👇 For a musician, which would be harder to lose — hearing or sight?
🎶🎼🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼🎶🎵🎼
🎶 《当伟大作曲家逐渐失去光明 》👁️👂
从光明走入黑暗：三位音乐大师的眼睛故事
蔡鐘能医生 12/9/2026
对一位作曲家来说，听觉和视力，哪一样更重要？
大家都熟悉贝多芬的故事。尽管听力不断衰退，他依然凭着深厚的音乐记忆、丰富的想象力，以及在脑海中“听见”整支乐团的能力，创作出许多传世名曲。
然而，视力对作曲家同样重要。他们需要阅读乐谱、亲手写下成千上万个音符、指挥乐团，并在观众面前演奏。
对巴赫、亨德尔和李斯特来说，视力衰退严重影响了他们的音乐生涯。而巴赫的遭遇尤其不幸——医治他的办法，可能比眼病本身更可怕。
🎼 约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫（Johann Sebastian Bach）
🎧 聆听：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS7wXbMFE2I
到了1740年代末，巴赫的视力已经严重衰退，最可能的原因是白内障。1750年，他把双眼交给了一位从英国远道而来的巡回眼医——约翰·泰勒（John Taylor）。
短短几个星期内，泰勒替巴赫动了两次手术。当时采用的很可能是古老的“白内障针拨术”：医生把针刺入眼内，将混浊的晶状体推离瞳孔范围，而不是真正将白内障取出。
即使手术一度看似成功，病人仍可能因为感染、严重发炎、青光眼或视网膜损伤而失明。
那个年代没有现代麻醉、无菌技术、手术显微镜，也没有人工晶体。术后的所谓“治疗”，还可能包括放血、服用泻药，以及使用成分古怪的眼药。
巴赫的手术最终失败，他完全失明，几个月后又中风去世。我们无法肯定手术是否直接导致他的死亡，但当时的报道将他的死归咎于手术所带来的“不幸后果”。
🎼 乔治·弗里德里希·亨德尔（George Frideric Handel）
🎧 聆听：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h4mAceHmrI
亨德尔在创作最后一部神剧《耶弗他》（Jephtha）时，左眼视力开始严重下降。
在原稿中，他写到“主啊，您的旨意何等幽暗”这句歌词时停了下来，并在旁边注明：因为左眼视力变弱，他已经无法继续写下去。
这成为音乐史上令人心酸的巧合——当亨德尔写着有关“黑暗”的音乐时，他自己的世界也正逐渐陷入黑暗。
亨德尔后来接受了几次眼睛手术，可惜都没有成功，最终失明。约翰·泰勒后来声称自己曾替亨德尔治疗，不过历史学家至今仍在争论，他究竟参与了哪一次手术。
失明并没有让亨德尔与音乐告别。他仍然出席演出，并在别人的协助下弹奏风琴，主要依靠记忆与即兴演奏。
1759年去世前不久，他还亲自出席了自己最著名的作品《弥赛亚》（Messiah）的演出。
🎼 弗朗茨·李斯特（Franz Liszt）
🎧 聆听：https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qiJcXAuOMNU
一个多世纪后，李斯特晚年也患上白内障。随着视力不断下降，他阅读乐谱和写作音乐越来越困难，有时甚至需要别人搀扶才能走上舞台。
幸运的是，当时的眼科手术已经比巴赫的年代进步许多。李斯特曾接受德国著名眼科医生阿尔弗雷德·格雷费（Alfred Graefe）的检查，并安排在1886年9月接受白内障手术。
不过，李斯特始终对手术感到不安。最后，他没有等到手术那一天，便于1886年7月去世了。
👁️ 华丽登场的“骑士眼医”约翰·泰勒
约翰·泰勒绝不是一位低调的医生。
他坐着一辆画满眼睛图案的豪华马车周游欧洲，每到一个地方都会发表充满戏剧性的演说，还为自己冠上许多听起来非常显赫的头衔。
他曾替皇室成员、贵族和著名音乐家看病。若论宣传自己的本领，他可能比行医更加出色。
可惜，他的自信往往远远超过医术。据说，即使病人手术后失明，他仍会宣布手术成功；有时，他甚至会在病人拆开眼罩之前便离开当地。
他的疗法包括放血、泻药，以及用糖粉、烤盐，甚至鸽子血制成的所谓眼药。
英国作家塞缪尔·约翰逊（Samuel Johnson）曾讽刺他的一生，证明了“无知只要配上厚脸皮，也能走得很远”。
更具讽刺意味的是，有历史记载指出，这位一生替别人治疗眼睛的医生，晚年也可能失去了视力。
今天，白内障手术已经成为医学上最普遍、成功率也很高的手术之一。眼科医生只需通过一个微小切口，取出混浊的晶状体，再植入清晰的人工晶体。大多数病人在手术当天便可以回家。
我们不禁会想：如果巴赫、亨德尔和李斯特当年能够获得现代眼科治疗，他们是否会为后世留下更多伟大的作品？
👇 对一位音乐家来说，失去听觉与失去视力，哪一样更难以承受？
#音乐 #古典音乐 #伟大作曲家 #巴赫 #亨德尔 #李斯特 #贝多芬 #白内障 #白内障手术 #失明 #视力衰退 #眼睛健康 #眼科知识 #眼科历史 #医学历史 #蔡钟能眼科医生
