Lost and Found: 8 Classical Music Masterworks Rescued From History

By Katherine Buzard |

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shelves of leatherbound archival manuscripts

In September, media outlets blew up with the news that a previously unknown work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had just been located in a library in Leipzig. The rediscovered piece, a 12-minute string trio titled Serenade in C, was likely composed by Mozart in the early 1760s, when he was still a preteen. This is not the first time a new composition by the musical genius has been unearthed; more pieces have been found and authenticated as the Köchel-Verzeichnis—the comprehensive catalog of Mozart’s works—has undergone its latest revision.

Watch an original period instrument performance of Mozart's newly unearthed work featuring Chicago musicians Rachel Barton Pine, Sylvia Pine, and Craig Trompeter filmed at WFMT's studios.

This discovery led us to wonder—what other works were once believed lost forever, or remained entirely unknown, only to be rediscovered years or even centuries later? In this article, we take a look at eight examples of pieces that vanished, whether by accident or by design, only to be brought back into the light years, or centuries, later.


1. Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8, “Unfinished Symphony”

Franz Schubert (1797–1828) was known for starting works and never completing them. In fact, he only completed seven of the 13 symphonies he started. However, his so-called “Unfinished” Symphony No. 8 is the most complete and musically accomplished of the lot. We don’t know why he never completed the score. Some scholars posit that he felt he could not sustain the quality and innovativeness of the first two movements. Others think he got distracted by other projects, or he stopped due to illness, as it was around this time that he contracted syphilis, the disease that would ultimately claim him at the age of 31. Regardless, what we do know is that in 1823 he gave the orchestral score of the first two movements and the first two pages of the scherzo to his friend and fellow composer Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a leader in the Graz Music Society, which had recently given Schubert and honorary diploma. Hüttenbrenner kept the score in his possession until 1865, when he was finally persuaded to relinquish Schubert’s work for publication and performance.


2. Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria in D Major, RV 589

Until Antonio Vivaldi’s (1678–1741) revival in the early 20th century, the Baroque composer had largely been known for his virtuosic violin concertos, like The Four Seasons. However, in the late 1920s, the discovery of a volume of sacred vocal music in Turin changed our perception of the “Red Priest” forever. No one thought Vivaldi had composed any church music because, even though he was a priest, he never held the position of maestro di capella. This discovery revealed Vivaldi’s choral output to be substantial, including over 50 works that often rival the artistry of his concertos. Among this volume was Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major, RV 589. Ever since Alfredo Casella introduced it to the world during “Vivaldi Week” in Siena, Italy in 1939, it has become one of the most performed pieces of Baroque choral music, beloved for its tunefulness and accessibility.

Vivaldi wrote the work around 1715 for his young musicians at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls in Venice where Vivaldi taught for 30 years. Under his tutelage, the musicians at the Pietà gained great acclaim, premiering many of Vivaldi’s major works. Unlike his concertos, little of his sacred music circulated outside the Pietà’s walls, contributing to their 200-year obscurity.


3. Ludwig van Beethoven: Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, “Für Elise”

It’s shocking to think that perhaps the most recognizable piece of piano music, written by one of classical music’s most recognizable names, was only discovered 40 years after the composer’s death. Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770–1827) Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, “Für Elise,” was rediscovered by German musicologist Ludwig Nohl in 1865 among the papers of retired Munich teacher Babette Bredl. The original autograph manuscript, now lost, apparently read, “Für Elise am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn” (“For Elise on 27 April in memory by L. v. Bthvn”).

The identity of “Elise” has plagued musicologists for the last 150 years, particularly given Beethoven’s history of unrequited love for unattainable women. One theory is that Nohl misread the name when he transcribed it, and it actually read, “Therese.” This could’ve been Therese Malfatti, one of Beethoven’s crushes and an accomplished pianist. She had gone on tour with a pianist named Rudolf Schachner, who inherited all her music when she died in 1851. Bredl came to own the manuscript because Schachner was her son. That said, Nohl may not have misread the title at all. Norman Lebrecht argues that Bredl inscribed the cover with the name “Elise” herself, as her granddaughter was named Elise.

Whoever Beethoven wrote the "Für Elise" for, generations of piano students and teachers have her to thank (or curse) for inspiring this famous piece.


4. Franz Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) was a prolific composer, penning over 100 symphonies, 68 string quartets, 60 piano sonatas, and at least 45 concertos for various instruments. With this substantial output, it comes as no surprise that some works went missing, particularly those written early in his career. While some pieces are presumed lost forever, one reemerged in Prague in 1961, miraculously surviving 200 tumultuous years of European history: Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major.

Haydn wrote the concerto between 1761 and 1765, early in his long tenure as Kapellmeister at the Palace of Esterházy. The piece was rediscovered in a private collection that had been donated to the Czech National Library in Prague. Although the score was not written in Haydn’s hand, it was easy to authenticate against a thematic entry in Haydn’s catalog of 1765, which includes the main theme of the first movement.


5. Igor Stravinsky: Funeral Song

Sometimes, political turmoil causes musical manuscripts to go missing. A young Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) wrote Funeral Song as a tribute in 1908, shortly after the death of his teacher and mentor, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The work premiered on January 30, 1909, in a memorial concert for Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In the early 1910s, Stravinsky and his family divided their time between Russia, Switzerland, and Paris. As geopolitical conflict loomed, Stravinsky returned to Russia in July 1913 to retrieve some personal effects. World wars, the Russian Revolution, and Stalinism would prevent him from stepping foot on Russian soil again until 1962.

Stravinsky believed the score to Funeral Song had “disappeared in Russia during the Revolution, along with many other things which I had left there.” Unbeknownst to the composer, the St. Petersburg Conservatory had received the orchestra parts in 1932. However, as an emigrant, Stravinsky was deemed a “non-person,” and his works, ostensibly banned during Stalin’s “anti-cosmopolitan” campaign, were hidden away. As the conservatory prepared for building renovations in 2015, workers discovered a pile of scores that had long been inaccessible. Among the scores, Professor Natalia Braginskaya found a complete set of orchestral parts for Funeral Song. Braginskaya meticulously recreated the full score from the parts, consulting the players’ and Stravinsky’s handwritten notes from the premiere performance. The work, which Stravinsky considered his best early composition, received its first performance in over 100 years in December 2016.


6. Georges Bizet: Symphony in C

Georges Bizet (1838–1875) completed only one symphony in his lifetime, but it remained unperformed and largely unknown until 1935. It was only rediscovered in the library of the Paris Conservatory in 1933, 58 years after the composer’s tragically early death from a heart attack at 36. Bizet penned his Symphony in C in 1855 at the age of 17, demonstrating a precocious compositional talent that critics and biographers have compared to that of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schubert. Bizet likely wrote the symphony as an assignment while a student of Charles Gounod at the Paris Conservatoire.

It is unclear why Bizet’s Symphony in C was withheld, but his widow (who lived until 1926) forbade its performance or publication after his death. It could be because, at the time of composition, French musical life was focused on opera rather than symphonies, so it was not a priority. It also could have been that Bizet modeled his symphony heavily on the structure of Gounod’s Symphony in D, which premiered nine months before Bizet wrote his symphony. Or it could be because he reused some of the musical material in later works. Regardless, the young composer’s accomplishment reiterates why Bizet should be remembered for more than just Carmen.


7. Felix Mendelssohn: "Des Menschen Herz ist ein Schacht" ("The Heart of Man Is Like a Mine")

Yet another composer whose life was tragically cut short was Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847), who died at the age of 38 without leaving a will. This is partially why 270 of his works remained unpublished until the early 2000s, when the Mendelssohn Project, led by Stephen Somary, set out to recover his lost music. Another contributing factor was Richard Wagner’s anti-Semitic treatise “Judaism in Music,” which used Mendelssohn as a prime example of why Jews had no place in the arts. The heinous manifesto was published shortly after Mendelssohn’s death, causing him to fall out of public favor. Though some of Mendelssohn’s manuscripts were scattered across Europe, most were housed in the Berlin State Library—that is, until the rise of the Nazi regime. In 1936, they were transferred to Warsaw and Krakow, and then, when these cities were invaded, they were smuggled out to various cities around the world via any means necessary.

One recently rediscovered work is a charming, 29-bar song called “Des Menschen Herz ist ein Schacht” (“A Man’s Heart Is Like a Mine”), which sets words by poet Friedrich Rückert. Mendelssohn wrote the Lied in 1844 as a commission for a friend, Johann Valentin Teichmann (a manager of Berlin’s Royal Theater who had lived with the Mendelssohn family for a time), never intending for it to be published or publicly performed. The signed manuscript was sold at auction twice, once in 1862 and again in 1872, before it vanished.

Scholars thought the score was lost until it was rediscovered in the United States among the papers of a Mendelssohn fan in 2014. Along with the manuscript was a letter Mendelssohn had written to Teichmann asking him not to share the song with anyone else “because I have written it only at your request and only for you.” Well, too late! The manuscript and letter were sold at an auction in 2014 for £60,000 (over $130,000 today).


8. Alessandro Striggio: Missa sopro Ecco sì beato giorno

“There is always a very particular thrill when music which has been silent for four and a half centuries is suddenly sounding again,” musicologist Davitt Moroney said about rediscovering the long-lost Missa sopro Ecco sì Beato Giorno (Mass on “Behold Such a Blessed Day”) by Italian Renaissance composer Alessandro Striggio. Striggio (c. 1536/7–1592) was a musician and nobleman who divided his time between the court in Mantua and the Medici court in Florence.

In 1561, Striggio had written a 40-part motet called Ecce Beatam Lucem for his patron, Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, to celebrate the visit of Catholic dignitaries from Rome. Around 1566, Striggio adapted some of this musical material for an even grander work: a full setting of the Ordinary of the Mass for 40 unique voice parts (five choirs of eight voices each), expanding to 60 parts in the Agnus Dei. Strapping all 40 part-books to the back of a donkey, Striggio traversed the Alps in the dead of winter to present his mass to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna. The assignment: to convince the Emperor to name his Medici patron the King of Tuscany. Though Striggio’s diplomatic mission was unsuccessful, he did extend his trip to Munich, Paris, and London, where he likely met English composer Thomas Tallis. A few years after Striggio’s trip, Tallis would go on to compose his own 40-part motet, Spem in Alium (made pop-culture famous through its inclusion in the first Fifty Shades of Grey film).

Moroney had been looking for this mass for 20 years, when he finally unearthed it in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris in 2005. The reason it had gone missing for 400 years was that it had been miscatalogued under the wrong composer’s name (“Strusco”) and the wrong title (as a mass for four voice parts, not 40). Scholars Brian Clark and Robert Hollingworth helped reconstruct the work for modern performance. Despite its call for huge forces, the work is surprisingly nuanced, as Hollingworth explains: “It’s a kind of sacred conversation. It’s not just huge left-to-right power play. In fact, it’s five-choir geometric sound design, but it’s music at times of real subtlety.”

A shortform documentary goes behind the scenes of the recovery and recording of this work

There’s always more to explore, thanks to the dedicated work of librarians, archivists, and scholars who have preserved, unearthed, and sometimes meticulously reconstructed these forgotten works.

Whether lost due to personal misgivings, political strife, neglect, or simple human error, they reiterate that these soaring historical figures, and those who have advanced and preserved their works, were, in fact, people. The rediscovery of these eight pieces reminds us that classical music is not static but a living, breathing artform, even when it comes to the works of composers from centuries past.