The last of Johann Sebastian Bach’s surviving children, Regina Susanna Bach, was born in 1742. At that time, Bach was 57 years of age, and he started to experience a number of health issues. Most serious was an affliction to his eyes, which got progressively worse over the years. Probably caused by diabetes, cataracts eventually restricted his ability to work. He underwent an eye operation performed by the English specialist John Taylor, who would later perform a similar operation on Handel. (Read more from “Did Johann Sebastian Bach die from eye surgery complications?”

J.S. Bach

Bach was presumably operated on both eyes while seated upright in a chair and held tightly by a helper, “who made sure the patient did not move at crucial moments in this era without anesthetics being in common use.” Besides being incredibly painful, the operation was only partly successful and had to be repeated one week later. Biographies indicate that Bach was completely blind after the second operation, and that “he felt ill and experienced painful eyes.”

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 (excerpts)

John Taylor

Bach never recovered after the operations. Supposedly, Bach’s vision returned a few days before his death; however, this was likely caused by “Charles Bonnet syndrome, in which patients experience complex visual hallucinations.” Bach subsequently suffered a stroke and “burning fever,” and he died at 6:15pm on 28 July 1750. He was buried two or three days later at the cemetery of the Johanniskirche, but it is not known what form the funeral ceremony took or what music was performed. Bach left a modest estate that was divided between the widow and the nine surviving children of both marriages. He also gave clear instructions for the disposition of this musical estate, but according to the Bach biographer Forkel, Wilhelm Friedemann got most of it. Anna Magdalena survived her husband by ten years, and she died in abject poverty in 1760. Regina Susanna Bach remained in Leipzig until her death in 1809. We know very little about her circumstances, but she appeared to have struggled with poverty throughout. Friedrich Rochlitz—the founder and editor of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung—had to print a public plea for funds to assist her in May 1800.

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