Clive Wearing (born 11 May 1938) is a British former musicologist, conductor, tenor and pianist who developed chronic anterograde and retrograde amnesia in 1985.
For that occasion, he chose to recreate, with authentic instruments and meticulously researched scores, the Bavarian royal wedding that took place in Munich on 22 February 1568.
The music by Lassus, Padovano, de'Bardi, Palestrina, Gabrieli, Tallis and others was performed by the Taverner Consort, Choir and Players and the Natural Trumpet Ensemble of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, conducted by Andrew Parrott.
On 27 March 1985, Wearing, then an acknowledged expert in early music at the height of his career with BBC Radio 3, contracted herpesviral encephalitis, a herpes simplex virus that attacked his central nervous system.
During this time, he repeatedly questions why he has not seen a doctor, as he constantly believes that he has only recently awoken from a comatose state.
[3][full citation needed] In a diary provided by his carers, Wearing was encouraged to record his thoughts.
[9] His story was told in a 1986 documentary entitled Equinox: Prisoner of Consciousness, in which he was interviewed by Jonathan Miller.
[10] A follow-up episode was aired in 1998 on the second edition of The Mind as Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing.
[12] Sacks wrote about Wearing himself in a chapter in his 2007 book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, and an article in The New Yorker titled "The Abyss".
[7] Sam Kean also discussed Wearing's life in the twelfth chapter of his 2014 book, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons.