Bach Back

The missing score to the Wedding Cantata (BWV216) has been found in Japan after 80 years on the lam.

Eight pages of the 1728 composition were recently found among the possessions of the late classical pianist, Chieko Hara. The discovered pages contain the soprano and alto portions of the cantata. The newly recovered pages help correct some errors in archived copies of those parts. The remaining parts are not thought to still exist, so music scholars can only try to reconstruct the full score as it might have sounded. Hara, who performed mostly in Europe, was married to Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassado, who is believe to have obtained the score from the descendents of composer Felix Mendelssohn, who were known to possess the score in 1926.

Music professor Tadashi Isoyama explained that the piece was probably performed only once, which was the custom for wedding cantatas, which were composed for specific couples. This work was written by Bach for the daughter of a customs official.

Read the AP story via MSNBC, the coverage from Japan Times Weekly Online, or from Russia's Pravda