Two compositions for organ were identified in Germany as being by Johann Sebastian Bach, three decades after their discovery, and were played this Monday for the first time in more than three centuries, in Leipzig.
The Partita in D minor, numbered BWV 1178, and the Partita in G minor BWV 1179 have finally been attributed to the famous composer after more than 30 years of investigation, revealed Peter Wollny, director of the Leipzig Bach Archives, during a press conference.
The musicologist himself discovered the manuscripts from the time in the Royal Library of Belgium, in Brussels, in 1992.
The two works, from a musical genre in vogue at the time, presented “stylistic features that are found in Bach’s works from this period, but in no other composer”explained Peter Wollny, adding, however, that they were neither dated nor signed.
For three decades, the musicologist looked for “the missing piece to attribute these compositions”, that is, “the identification of the copyist”, he explained.
It was the creation of a research portal on the composer, carried out by the Saxon Academy of Sciences, which made it possible to “state with certainty” that the copies found in Brussels were actually made around 1705 by Salomon Günther John, a student of Bachhe stated.
According to Peter Wollny, Bach composed these pieces in approximately the same year in Arnstadt, Thuringia, where he was an organist at the beginning of his career, aged just 18.
The two works were presented to the public for the first time by Dutch organist Ton Koopman, president of the Archives, in the church of St. Thomas in Leipzig, in the presence of State Secretary for Culture Wolfram Weimer.
The German ruler highlighted the event as a “worldwide sensation” and a “great moment for the world of music”.