WEBVTT

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[music]

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-Excuse me. Why Torvill and Dean?

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-Well,
I think they’re extraordinary.

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They did for ice dancing
what Bach did for the cello.

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I think they both worked
with strict forms.

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Through working that way,

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they were able to find
unbelievable freedom of expression,

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depth of expression.

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In this piece,
in particular, The Sixth Suite,

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I think their choreography can
enter the realm of the music, which,

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I guess, some people have
described as the Dance of the Gods.

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-Okay. Thanks.

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-Sure.

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[music]

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-I think when I first came to Kothen,
I was truly joyful.

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I must not forget to mark down
those moments of real gladness.

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They come so rarely.

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I was finally paid quite handsomely.

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I had 16 top-notch
musicians at my service.

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I didn’t have a choir,
but then I didn’t have to teach.

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So,
just music, music for music’s sake.

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For the Lord’s sake.

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Written at the behest of the prince,
my employer,

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a literate and ardent young friend.

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[music]

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Of course,
I had my cherished Maria Barbara with

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me and my four children
alive and well. Praise God.

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[music]

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My new little boy,
still warm from the womb,

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Leopold Augustus.

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I named him after the prince,
who was also his godfather.

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We baptized him in the castle.

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I intended to live here for
the rest of my days, yes.

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At that moment,
I thought the world good.

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Good indeed.

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[music]

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[scribbling sound]

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[sighing]

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[traffic noise]

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[music]

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Of course, there were always doubts.

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Nothing is clear.

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Was I isolating myself?

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Should I try to develop a connection
with other composers of the day?

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I’d always been interested in
what the others were doing.

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When I was 15, I walked 200
miles to hear Bach’s Hood play.

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-In fact, Bach never traveled more
than 200 miles outside his hotel.

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-I copied the works of
Telemann and Handel.

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This Handel, marvelous composer,

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no wonder everyone is so
excited about his work.

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On several occasions, I tried to
make contact with him, but well,

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he seemed to be avoiding me.

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-He was.

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Handel had many opportunities
to meet Bach, but he declined.

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Handel was very popular,
well-traveled.

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He was worldly.

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Bach, on the other hand,
stayed close to home.

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He had a great inner life,
great imagination.

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During his time though was
considered old-fashioned.

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-I know I’m considered conservative,
old fashioned,

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but does everyone have to try to
invent some whole new kind of music?

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We get some us complete
existing ideas well.

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[music]

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Of course,
I’ve never had any security really.

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[music]

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Especially if the number
of funerals drops.

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I need funerals to make a living.

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The healthy wind blows.

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It’s deadly as it were.

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Death feeds me.

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It’s all around me.

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[background noise]

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Am I a fool?

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Am I secluded in this little castle?

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[music]

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Bach was pretty much forgotten
as anything but really

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wonderful organist until
almost a century after he

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died, when Mendelssohn revived
his reputation as a composer with

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a huge wildly successful
production of st. Matthew Passion.

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[music]

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-Whenever I take my pipe and stuff
it in smoke to pass the time away,

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my thoughts as I sit
there and puff it,

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dwell on a picture sad and gray.

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It teaches me that very like,
am I myself unto my pipe, like me,

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this pipe so fragrant burning is
made of naught but earth and clay.

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To earth, I too shall be returning.

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It falls and there I
think to say it breaks

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in two before my eyes in store for
me, a like fate lies, et cetera.

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When the Prince took his cure
at Carlsbad in June 1720,

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he took me and five
other musicians with him.

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It was ideal.
I thought of music at nothing but.

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At the time, I thought this
good and as it should be.

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I missed the children and
my beloved Maria Barbara,

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but,
my God, there can be joy in work.

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[music]

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-The Six Suites were the first
works ever written for Solo Cello.

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-Yes,
there’s no record of those Cello

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Suites ever having been performed.

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-I was obliged to be industrious.

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Anyone who is equally industrious
will succeed equally well.

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[music]

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-Park Road has first
five Cello Suites

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for the conventional
four-stringed instrument.

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For the Sixth Suite, he stipulated
a five-string instrument

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with the addition
of a high E string.

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It’s as though his vision of
his music demanded an extension

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in technique and range that the
current instrument wouldn’t allow.

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Tradition has it that
he was at least partly

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responsible for the invention
called the Viola Pomposa.

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Its form and shape,

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manner of playing has been a
matter of much debate and vitriol.

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Box instrument hasn’t survived.

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I suppose it will
always remain a mystery.

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[music]

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[scribbling sound]

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[thunder storm]

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-I came back to misery.

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No one had told me.

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Maria Barbara was gone.

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Children were still in the house
alone, completely confused.

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They knew something was crazy.

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She had died while I was away,

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just died.

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She was healthy. We were happy.

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She just died.

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They had buried her already
before I could see her.

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My Maria Barbara.

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[thunder storm]

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[music]

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[thunder storm]

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[music]

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I was an orphan.
I was an an orphan at 10,

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but I had Christopher and Jacob,
my brothers.

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Now, they too have left this earth.

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[music]

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This is my lot.

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Self-pity is an indulgence
for the petty and the small.

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For life is a symphony of sorrows.

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[music]

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My God is an angry God.

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I know death is a release
from the strangely. I know

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I have to be happy for those who
have left me behind, but for myself,

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I am not.

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[music]

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[background noise]

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Then it began to ring
hollow like a tin trumpet.

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It appeared to me that I gave Prince
Leopold’s life, a musical score,

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his birthdays,
his dances, meetings, partying.

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Now he’s caught up in amusements with
a stupid Princess Anhalt-Bernburg.

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She knows nothing of music.
She’s jealous of our friendship.

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I once benefited from Leopold’s
ardent nature, but clearly,

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he is just a man of
transient and excitements.

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Now, this princess is the new
instrument he wants to play.

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I carry on.
He carries on. She carries on.

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In our little dance,
polite, dutiful, and empty.

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[music]

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[sighs]

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What am I doing here?

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All this frivolity.

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I need a choir.

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[choir singing]

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My Lord and Father,
the creator of all that is,

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I need to serve you from within
the womb of my faith again.

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I can’t have any
more of these dances.

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It is almost painfully
symbolic that my little

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boy named after Leopold
is now dead too.

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[nature sounds]

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Then change.

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She has a soprano voice that
is not entirely disagreeable.

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Well, actually it is lovely.

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She can even copy music.

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She wants to know more
about contrapuntal forms.

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My friends have been
nagging me to remarry.

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I’ve been alone for too long.

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The children, especially
Friedman so gifted, fragile,

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they need a strong hand.

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I’ve been writing all night
and she sings so finely.

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Her form,

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thank you, Lord, for creating
a woman with such a form.

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It is so cold here and the
miracle of birth, I miss it.

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Warm, wet little body full of
the future, full of me and her,

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Anna Magdalene.

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[music]

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[applause]

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Am I wrong to find delight again?

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Does it make light to my grieves?

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Do our smiles make light of death?

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[music]

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[background noise]

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I did what I could God.
I did what I could.

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[music]

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-Bach’s body was exhumed almost
150 years after his death.

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Adam Pulitzer, a famed Viennese
medical authority studied Bach’s

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remains and yielded results
suggestive of his musical genius.

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-A well organized,
well-developed ear is

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indispensable for the
making of a great composer.

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In Bach’s case,
the overall impression

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of a particularly pronounced

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development of the temporal
bone is immediately apparent.

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It is confirmed by the
examination of its components.

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The abnormally large size
of the fenestra rotunda.

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The extraordinary thickness and
firmness of the mastoid process.

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[music]