Thursday, July 14, 2011

Baroque past in Romania

A most interesting lot of old music notes has just been discovered in Transylvania, according to articles published in Le Monde and the Guardian. The British newspaper, in an article published on June 21 and signed by Mirel Bran, tells us:

Several thousand of these recently discovered manuscripts are held at the National Archives in Sibiu, a pretty town in Transylvania, central Romania. Philippi, a music consultant to the Evangelical church and conductor of the Sibiu Bach choir, has set himself the task of saving this trove of baroque music. "After the end of the Communist dictatorship, a large part of Romania's German-speaking community emigrated to Germany and whole villages were deserted," he explains. "We decided to gather up all we could find among our church records. I had no idea of the treasures hidden here." His work has discovered a little known adaptation of the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, a Bach cantata arranged by the composer for the Lutheran church of Transylvania, works by Johann Sartorius, Knall, Corelli and a host of local composers.

In the picture, the Lutheran church in Sibiu. Read the whole article here.

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