Lost Bach composition turns up after decades

Part of J.S. Bach's "Wedding Cantata" was recently found in Japan nearly eight decades after it went missing. Eight pages of the 1728 composition, BWV 216, were recently 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 (soprano and alto portions) was believed to have been copied by Bach's students under his direction at the time he composed the work, Isoyama said. The cantata was last know to have been in the possession of the family of Felix Mendelssohn. These fragments were believed to be those used when the cantata was originally performed in 1728. Hara, last owner of the score, was married to the cellist Gaspar Cassado, who is believed to have obtained the score from Mendelssohn's family.