Chieko Hara

Eight pages of the 1728 composition Wedding Cantata BWV 216 by the German baroque master were recently found among the possessions of the late classical pianist Chieko Hara, said Tadashi Isoyama, a professor at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo.

The partial score, consisting of the soprano and alto portions of the cantata, was believed to have been copied by Bach's students under his direction at the time he composed the work, Isoyama said.

Composed for the wedding of a daughter of a customs official, the cantata later made its way through the hands of musicians and collectors, and was last known to have been in the possession of the family of German composer Felix Mendelssohn in 1926.

The Japan Times Weekly: April 10, 2004
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