Fragments of lost Bach work found

Part of a lost composition by Johann Sebastian Bach has been found in Japan about 80 years after it went missing, a Japanese music professor says.

Eight pages of a 1728 wedding cantata by the German baroque master recently were found among the possessions of the late Japanese classical pianist Chieko Hara, said Tadashi Isoyama, a professor at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo.

The partial score, consisting of the soprano and alto portions of the cantata, BWV 216, was believed to have been copied by Bach’s students under his direction at the time he composed the work, Isoyama said.

Though most of the work remains lost to history, the find is important for Bach scholars because the fragments are believed to be those used when the cantata was originally performed in 1728, said Isoyama, who coordinated efforts to determine their authenticity.