Since I am currently in Austria, and therefore not reading any news, I did not realize until today that our colleagues Peter Wollny and Michael Maul at the Bach-Archiv have come up with yet another Bach discovery. A couple of months after the spectacular find of an unknown Bach aria, they uncovered two music manuscripts that were copied by J. S. Bach in his early youth. The manuscripts contain music by by Johann Adam Reinken and Dietrich Buxtehude, two prominent composers of 17th-century North Germany. What makes this discovery so valuable is the fact that Bach stated at the end of the Reinken copy that he copied the music in the house of Georg Böhm (1661-1733): “a Dom. Georg: Böhme | descriptum ao. 1700 | Lunaburgi.” This seems to prove that Bach studied indeed with Böhme, as has been speculated before.

For a detailed press release see the website of the Bach Archiv at http://www.bach-leipzig.de/