The puzzle of the socalled "Bach variations".

[dafydd manton]

Your axiom is contradicted by intelligence people mostly working on multiple hypotheses and what if scenaria.

But Walpole's verse is nothing like such, it reads instead like "time to do something about it".

What the heck has Walpole got to do with Intelligence Collection? It was a field in which I worked for 15 long years, so can refute your rather strange contentions without fear of contradiction. Well, sensible contradiction, anyway. Thank you, I have learned all I need to know at this point. It has been......interesting.

[yanni]

Walpole, like most diplomats of his time, had a lot to do with all of todays departments or fields of intelligence, planning, collecting, interpreting and evaluating etc and was quite a skilled diplomat as well.

You are confused because you are applying current company structure (reducing the individual and prohibiting initiative, hence your axiom and bitterness) to judge another era.

Your considered thoughts on the subject, as per title, are still wellcome.

Regards.

[dafydd manton]

Nobody is talking about diplomats, politicians or anybody else, We are talking about GATHERING intelligence, the principles of which have not changed in over 2000 years. merely the methodology has altered. Bitterness? Wrong. Confusion? Wrong. Current Company Structure? More than wrong. Other than that, well.......it still doesn't explain the disparity between the two different hands. does it?

[yanni]

Believe it or not, Dafydd, this subject is titled "the puzzle of the socalled Brandenburg concertos" and has to do with Handel/Bach and the people he associated with.

Like all puzzles, unless one expands upon mutliple hypotheses on all elements as they prop up thru research, it cannot be solved.

Furthemore the word itself, hypothesis, defines that any "thesis" (and as it turns out most axioms are but such) includes various underlying angles that must be always examined.

Have a good day.

[dafydd manton]

Funny, that. It says "Bach variations" on my computer. Reliability of evidence, that kind of thing. Oh dear.

[yanni]

Your initiative to expand upon a hypothesis was proven right, Daf, but your skills of intelligence collection so far have not provided any evidence to counter mine in "either" subject.

The subject is "Handel and Bach were one and the same" by now and will consist of at least three entities (many more can be produced if needed, all leading to the same conclusion).

The Bach variations , the Brandenurg Concertos and Handel/Bach's eye problem and Taylor surgery.

A fourth entity, titled "Musicology's helicopter accident", better be avoided, don't you think?

Thanks.

[dafydd manton]

I shouldn't like to get involved. No gentleman would get embroiled in personal mud-slinging, though, it's so common, don't you feel? Almost as bad as abbreviating a chap's name, what? Dash it all, you would refer to Mozart as Wolfie, would you. Ludders? Perishin' impertinence!

[Musicology]

With Mozart anything is possible. As we all know. And with that most controversial observation, voila !

[yanni]

Pity your englishcountrygentlemanly idiom was tainted. "Mud slinging"? Couldn't find it in my Concise Oxford, IV Ed, 1959, imagine that!

Are you suggesting perhaps that the well deserved "return to sender" of Sir Robert's latest attempt to "mud slinging with irony" was not documented enough to call his bluff (or blunder) or are you just dressing up this new attempt of -awfully common-slander differently?

Perish in your impertinance as you please, Sir Dafydd.

[dafydd manton]

English? Sir, you do me a disservice. I like the Sir bit though!

[yanni]

"Welshcountrygentlemanly" doesn't have the right ring, Dafydd.

Hugh Grand holds the title for "old english style" champion anyhow!

[dafydd manton]

No, you're right, it doesn't, but the word is long enough to be one of ours!!!!! Cheers!!

[yanni]

Coming back to third entity, Handel/Bach's eye problem and Taylor surgery, here is a short quote on Dr William Bromfield's son (William Bromfield allegedly operated on Handel/Bach's eye in 1752) studies in Florence:

His eldest son, William Heriot Bromfield, was born in Fetherstone Buildings, Holborn, and was baptised at St. Andrew's, Holborn, on December 19, 1736. He was entered at Eton in 1753, leaving two years later;' but his name appears as being apprenticed to his father in 1753, at Surgeons' Hall. He graduated M.D. at Padua, became a member of the Academies of Botany at Cortona and Florence, and of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, and it was he who published a French translation of his father's work on " The English Nightshades" in 1761; and to him was dedicated, by the editor, a Latin edition of his father's " Observations on Lithotomy " (extracted from his lectures on Surgery), published at Florence in the same year. This dedication extols his rare learning in every branch of literature and science, and refers to his studies under the illustrious Florentine Professor, Antonio Cocchi*, the friend of Isaac Newton and Richard Mead.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...00927-0107.pdf

We have seen so far that Bach/Handel was in Germany in 1750 to have his first eye operation by Dr Taylor which was succesfull.

He then returns to London, as Handel, and a few months later his left eye troubles him again and consults Samuel Sharp sometime after June 1751 who diagnosed [I]‘gutta serena’ (drop serene) which corresponds to the modern term of amaurosis, and which was then diagnosed in cases of ‘an abolition of the sight without any apparent cause or fault in the eyes’.

(No source is found today supporting an eventual first “couching” by Dr Sharp.)

Soon after.....

November 1752, Handel is ceized with a paralytic disorder in his Head which has deprived him from sight’ [Deutsch, 1955]. On November 4, Händel had been couched again, this time by the Princesses’ of Wales doctor William Bromfield. ‘Yesterday, George-Frederick Handel, Esq; was couch’d by William Bromfield, Esq; Surgeon to her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, when it was thought there was all imaginable Hopes of Success by the Operation, which must give the greatest Pleasure to all Lovers of Musick’ (General Advertiser, November 4, 1752) [Deutsch, 1955]. A short time later we find a notice in the Cambridge Chronicle (January 13, 1753): ‘Mr. Handel has so much recovered his sight that he is able to go abroad’, meaning that Händel was able to go out of doors [Deutsch, 1955]. Only 2 weeks later the public was confronted with the following news: ‘Mr. Handel has at length, unhappily, quite lost his sight. Upon his being couch’d some time since, he saw so well, that his friends flattered themselves his sight was restored for a continuance; but a few days have entirely put an end to their hope’ [Deutsch, 1955]. There was even a third eye operation by the ‘Chevalier’ John Taylor in Tunbridge Wells in 1758 (see London Chronicle, August 24, 1758) [Deutsch, 1955]. Taylor was the same man, who twice couched Johann Sebastian Bach without lasting success in 1750, and may actually have induced an iatrogenic wound infection leading to Bach’s death in July 1750.


Here is what Taylor himself wrote on the matter, partially covering the truth ( (his "Pretender" preferences already blown 1758, shortly before Handel's death):

But to proceed, I have seen a vast variety of singular animals, such as dromedaries, camels,&c and particularly at Leipsick, where a celebrated master of music, who had already arrived to his 88th year, received his sight by my hands; it is with this very man that the famous Handel was first educated, and with whom I once thought to have had the same success, having all circumstances in his favour, motions of the pupil, light, &L but upon drawing the curtain, we found the bottom defective, from a paralytic disorder.l

IE

Many years later, Taylor accepts to follow in step to the tune of "Handel and another music master he operated upon in Leipsig" (he avoids mentioning "Bach") and his descendants accept his discrediting by a later commentator who writes:

THIS much-quoted paragraph from the autobiography of the peripatetic English oculist John Taylor is the basis for the tradition that he operated on both J. S. Bach, who was certainly the celebrated master of music at Leipzig, and his even more famous contemporary Handel. But, besides its off-hand linking of human geniuses with camels,the passage is so full of inaccuracies that many authorities, including Coats, who wrote an excellent biography of Taylor, have discounted his claim. Thus Bach died at the age of 65, he did not regain his sight after operation, and, far from educating Handel, he never met him.

But scholars have collected some external evidence that Taylor did operate on Bach and perhaps on Handel, though unhappily without success:the inaccuracies may merely reflect his general unreliability about details.

Lies upon lies, yet Taylor confirms he first operated on Handel alone, believing his first operation had been successful: ...and with whom I once thought to have had the same success, having all circumstances in his favour, motions of the pupil, light, &L only to discover later, in consultation with other doctors, the root cause of the problem which was not cataract but deeper in the eye nerve ...but upon drawing the curtain, we found the bottom defective, from a paralytic disorder.

* By Antonio Cocchi: De lente crystalina oculi humani vera suffisionis sede epistola ad celeberrimum virum Jo. Baptistam Morgagnum Patavini lycei decus - Roma - Jo. Mariam Salvioni

(to be continued)

[Musicology]

Yanni,

Your learned discourse reminds me of the newspaper journalist who once reported on a great political speech given over several hours by a leading politician. His report was spread over 2 pages of the 'Times' Newspaper.

(But the journalist forgot to tell readers what that speech was actually about !)

In the case of 'Handel was Bach' the simple solution is best. The occultist world of Cocchi and his fraternal associates of the 18th century included patrons who wished to write musical 'history'. (Their ancestors still do !). Such as Cocchi and others. So G.F. Handel rapidly became a 'great' composer. And so did others. Including, later, Mozart.

On the subject of Handel/Bach's eye problems, your reference to William Heriot Bromfield (occulist), who supposedly operated on Handel's eyes in 1752- he too was part of the occultist network that included Cocchi and many others. His classic education at Padua, for a start is very typical of the Aristotelian education of British Empire managers and managing elites of the East India Company - at that time subsidising northern Germany and even Vienna. His links with Florence are typical also (a centre of British Empire imperalism and Freemasonry). And Bach's sons were lured in to this stuff also.

Bach's blinding was real and probably deliberate. (A man does not die from complications involved with eye operations alone). Both occulists named in connection with the 'Bach/Handel' affair were definitely associated with occult fraternities in England and Italy/Venice. Both were employed by the British royal family. Both were linked to elites of the Holy Roman Empire and the British Empire. Neither gave a damn about J.S. Bach and his music. Such are the facts of history. A century later the British themselves finally 'discover' Bach. But, as for Handel, that's a different story. Feted in Rome and recruited from an early age by the East India Company enclave at Hamburg. Destined soon after for close association and patronage by those usual elites of Rome. I think it was called the musical 'counter-reformation'.

Concerto in C
BWV 1055/1
Jean-Pierre Rampal - Soloist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO9uWg3Wujo

[yanni]

If only you would accompany your by now famous conclusions with facts and credible sources Robert.

Bach? Alas his biographers cannot be considered "credible" anymore:

Two biographies have been written by persons who knew Bach, or who interviewed people who had known him personally. 1,2 Bach’s biographies are Nekrolog auf Johann Sebastian Bach (1754), by Bach’s eldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, in collaboration with a former pupil of Bach’s, Friedrich Agricola1; and Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (1802), by Johann Nikolaus Forkel.2 The writers of the Nekrolog did not themselves witness much of the last years of Bach’s life. They no longer lived in Bach’s home; both had worked since 1747 as musicians in Potsdam. Forkel relied heavily on the Nekrolog in writing his biography but also interviewed many persons who had known Bach, including Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann*. All later biographies of Bach are based on these work

*....and of course Johann Christian, aka the London Bach! All "recollet" romancatholics btw eversince Frederick took over Silesia if not before.

Glad you have recovered from your helicopter accident, please advise on Judas Maccabeus last 1747 perfomances, will you?
Handel was in Germany later on in 1747, visiting Frederick, and so was Johann Sebastian Bach, "composer for the royal court of Poland and the Electoral court of Saxony, Kapellmeister and Director of Choral Music in Leipzig" (1741) only to be buried anonymously in 1750 in a backyard somewhere.

Everything is amiss in this scenario of yours!