What is there still to discover about Johann Sebastian Bach? At the Bach Archive in Leipzig, Peter Wollny has spent more than thirty years tracking down manuscripts, watermarks, copyists and all manner of musical clues. For the institution’s director, authenticating a score is a genuine investigation, in which doubt matters as much as intuition and the smallest detail can reopen a case thought to be closed. Just a few months ago, two further discoveries offered another reminder that, nearly three centuries after Bach’s death, his music and its transmission can still hold surprises.

Bach or Not Bach: That Is the Question!