Bach's missing score found in Japan

Bach's missing score found in Japan

TOKYO (AFP) - A missing musical score composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (news) was found in Japan, scholars said, calling it an invaluable discovery for musicians and researchers around the world.

The 1728 composition, called "Wedding Cantata BWV 216," was found among the possessions of Japanese pianist Chieko Hara, who died in Japan in 2001 at the age of 86.

"This is invaluable material that will lead to greater understanding of Bach," Tadashi Isoyama, a professor at Kunitachi College of Music, told reporters.

Isoyama led a team of scholars who since December have been examining the authenticity of the eight-page score, which has been missing for 80 years.

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Bach's missing score found in Japan

and get auctioned off for $40 million or so....

The $40 million "Sunflowers" painting (which was actually part of a series of "Sunflowers") was bought during the Japanese economic bubble by a nouveau riche Japanese industrialist who had far more money than he knew what to do with. Times are a lot different now.

After his death, Bach had become pretty much forgotten. His priceless music was pushed off to one side, gathering dust as Baroque music became passe. I've read that some of Bach's music scores were used as butcher paper, to wrap around pieces of meat headed home for the evening's supper.

So I'm grateful this piece had a better fate. Can't wait to hear it.

Who knows how many pieces of genius were lost to attitudes of the time? I love baroque music...and classical music. Why couldn't they just get along?

like the 1790s Appalachian family that had been using a doorstop that turned out to be one of the largest chunks of gold ever discovered east of the Mississippi.

Sometimes need overrules appreciation for culture. The original Bach transcripts were written in Germany (German states), which went through several periods of deprivation, including the Napoleonic wars and the two world wars, and, like people here in Japan, Germans during these times sometimes sacrificed priceless articles for the sake of necessity.

The work has been published (originally in the 19th century), but this original manuscript has been long sought by Bach scholars, as the published version may vary slightly from the manuscript.

Felix Mendelssohn was largely responsible for the first "Bach revival" in the 1830s-1840s; he unearthed a large number of other works by Bach.