In contrast with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, very little was known about Johann Sebastian Bach’s  early years until recently. His early works, such as the Easter cantata “Christ  lag  in Todesbanden ”  or the “ Actus   tragicus ”,  reveal a composer who achieved mastery at a young age, but not the  route to this status.  <br>
 In  Weimar , Peter  Wollny and Michael Maul have discovered copies of works by Dietrich Buxtehude (chorale fantasia “Nun freut euch , lieben Christen gmein ”) and Johann Adam Reinken (chorale fantasia “An  Wasserflüssen  Babylon”) in the hand of the twelve- to  fifteen-year-old Bach. They are in the usual tablature notation of the period,  which enabled  keyboard music to be written out making the most economical use of space on the  page.<br>
 <br>
 Corrections in Bach’s own hand show that he played these extremely demanding works at  an early age. A further annotation reveals that he was a pupil of the Lüneberg organist Georg Böhm by 1700. Altogether, this discovery represents  new material of fundamental importance  for Bach research.<br>
 <br>
 The full-colour facsimile reproduces the manuscripts in their original form, as separate leaves and  folded sheets. Bach’s transcriptions are accompanied by the copies made by his pupil Johann Martin Schubart , which include some unknown works by  Johann  Pachelbel . Faithful transcriptions  of all the works into modern notation facilitate study of the manuscripts and  also enable them to be  performed.<br>
 <br>