Bach, two new chaconnes after three centuries: Peter Wollny's reconstruction

Two early works by Bach have resurfaced from the files of the Royal Library of Brussels and have resounded, for the first time in three centuries, on the organ of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. They were identified, after more than thirty years of verification and comparison, by Peter Wollny, Director of the Bach Archives.

A three-decade-long intuition

In the early 1990s, a young researcher in Brussels, Wollny came across two anonymous manuscripts that seemed to "speak Bach's language." But definitive proof only recently arrived: in 2023, a job application from 1729 emerged, written by a former student of the composer, in the same handwriting as the two scores. This was a crucial clue that placed the pieces around Bach's youth, when he was about eighteen.

A restless Bach

Documents from the time show a surprisingly restless Bach: involved in some disputes and ready to force the rules of the strict Lutheran practice, as when he had a young woman sing from the choir, something forbidden at the time. The two chaconne The new works seem to still carry that energy: experimental pages, born at a time when the young musician was searching for his own voice.

The return home

The performance at Thomaskirche, the church where Bach worked and is buried, gave the discovery an almost symbolic significance. "His music never ages," observes Wollny. "It's like walking around a medieval cathedral: each time, a different window lets the light in."«

Today, thanks to two sheets of paper that resurfaced almost by chance, two more windows have reopened.