New Bach Music Found

New Bach Music Found

Last week, two“new”pieces of music by the famous composer Johann Bach were played for the first time in centuries. The discovery of the pieces is the result of 30years of hard work by Peter Wollny, who studies Bach's music.

Bach was a German composer of classical music in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Like Beethoven, Bach's music is still played daily around the world.

Mr Wollny is a big fan of Bach's music. While working in the Royal Library of Belgium, Mr Wollny found two scores—pieces of written music—from the1700s.They weren't signed,but something about the music caught his attention.

Mr Wollny made photocopies of the music and took the copies with him. Over the next 30 years, he held onto those copies, thinking about them from time to time. Who was the composer? Mr Wollny thought that it might be Bach, since the music was so clever and unusual.

Mr Wollny became interested in the writing of the person who had put the music on paper. He found 20 other papers with the same handwriting as the person who copied the two scores. But he still didn't know who the person was.

Then, in 2012, a friend showed Mr Wollny a letter written in 1729 by Salomon John. John was an organ (管风琴) player who wrote about learning from Bach. And the handwriting matched the two scores.

Mr Wollny believes that Bach wrote the two pieces of music when he was just 18, or perhaps younger. The pieces were copied down by John a few years later, around 1705.

After Mr Wollny presented his ideas and research, the two pieces were added to the official list of music known to be written by Bach.

On November 17, 2025, the two pieces were performed for the first time in over 300 years. The performance took place at Leipzig’s St Thomas Church, where Bach once worked. The two pieces were played by Ton Koopman, a famous Dutch organ player.