Two Forgotten Bach Chaconnes Resurface After 300 Years

On Monday, November 17th, the classical music world reacted to a once-in-a-lifetime surprise: previously unheard music by J. S. Bach, who died nearly three centuries ago! The find made headlines across major media outlets worldwide, including The New York Times, the BBC, Le Monde, The Guardian, Radio Classique, The Times, Le Figaro, the Deutsche Welle and many others.

The entire event was broadcast live by the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, where the long-lost pieces — two Chaconnes for organ in D minor and G minor, dating from around 1705 — were performed by Ton Koopman, a Baroque expert and one of the most respected Bach conductors of our time. (Watch him in this exultant performance of two Bach choral works in 2003.)

The two Chaconnes were actually discovered some 30 years ago in a manuscript alongside several other organ pieces, but the identity of the copyist wasn’t confirmed to experts’ satisfaction until the recent unearthing of a corroborating letter. This letter showed that the copyist, a one-time student of the young Bach, had certainly written the scores under the eye of Bach himself.

Both pieces (especially the Chaconne in D minor, BWV 1178) bring to mind two of Bach’s later ostinato-based masterworks: the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, for organ and the Chaconne in Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin in D minor, BWV 1004:

The newly presented organ works unveiled this week also foreshadow both the technical and expressive achievements of the spirit-lifting Goldberg Variations (1741), performed here by Glenn Gould, the pianist most closely associated with the work in the popular imagination.

A discovery like this is a rare and precious gift to music lovers everywhere and another reminder that the history of music cannot be written without the name of Johann Sebastian Bach.