After decades of research, the Bach Archive in Leipzig has identified two previously unattributed organ works as early works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Musicologist and archive director Peter Wollny assigned the two chaconnes in D minor and G minor to the then 18-year-old Bach - over 30 years after Wollny first discovered the works, as the archive announced. Their author had remained unknown for more than 320 years.
Now the pieces were performed in St. Thomas Church for the first time since their discovery. "I spent a long time looking for the missing piece of the puzzle to identify the compositions - now the whole picture has been revealed," said Wollny. He had already discovered the crucial manuscripts in the Royal Library in Brussels in the early 1990s. He immediately recognized from the handwriting features that they must come from "central Germany", presumably Thuringia.
