Posted on 08/31/2006 6:58:17 AM PDT by ecurbh
BERLIN — A previously unknown work by Johann Sebastian Bach has turned up in a crate of 18th-century birthday cards removed from a German library shortly before it was devastated by fire last year, researchers said Wednesday.
Experts say the work for soprano and string or keyboard accompaniment, composed for a German duke's birthday, is the first new music from the renowned composer to surface in 30 years.
Researcher Michael Maul from the Bach Archiv foundation found the composition, dated October 1713, in May in the eastern city of Weimar. The Leipzig-based foundation said there was no doubt about the authenticity of the handwritten, two-page score.
"It is no major composition but an occasional work in the form of an exquisite and highly refined strophic aria, Bach's only contribution to a musical genre popular in late 17th-century Germany,"said Christoph Wolff, the foundation's director and a professor at Harvard University.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
This looks interesting.
Ping!
Some of these discovery stories remind me of Peter Shickele's "discovery" of P.D.Q. Bach works.
Want!
From the article: "Maul said the foundation would exhibit the score once copyright issued have been cleared up."
They want the author to sign over the rights.
I've read that the great majority of Bach's work didn't survive long after his death.
His kids used a lot of his manuscripts for mulch.
Dear ecurbh,
Thanks for the ping!
Classical Music Ping List ping!
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Thanks!
sitetest
Thanks for the ping!
Peter Schickele's work is the best musical joke of our time.
Very little music from anyone survived the composer in those days. I'm baffled how J.S. Bach wrote so much music. To even copy out of his complete corpus working a 40 hour work week would take about 70 years.
Thanks for the Ping sitetest.
Using a figured bass helps.
But how did Liszt write so much?
Liszt had a coterie around him who helped him orchestrate (at least at first). Of course he had more free time then Bach and lived longer.
The lost work I most wish would be found is Prometheus Unbound by Havergal Brian. The BBC was entrusted with the manuscript and misplaced it. Guess ol' Havergal should have made a copy.
This will play right into the hands of PDQ Bach (a/k/a Peter Schickele). ;-)
GMTA :-)
My favorite PDQ Bach discovery story is the "Safe" Sextet, which, as it's name implies, was discovered left behind in a hotel safe that had been robbed.
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