This is damn interesting.

Headphones recommend it.

As a choir master in 1870s Salzburg, Innocenz Ockleitner often saw sheet music treated in a less than reverent manner.

It might be scattered across a composer's desk,

crammed into vocalist's folios,

or even marred with personal notes about bowings or breathmarts.

Never before, however, had he seen it wrapped around vegetables.

Only about 80% of men at the time were literate enough to sign their own name.

So, it's possible, Ockleitner's greengrocer didn't recognize what the marks on his packing material meant,

especially since each page stretched roughly 80 centimeters tall and resembled something more like newsprint rather than a standard sheet of music.

The choir master knew better, of course, and quickly convinced his grocer to hand them over.

Thus, by a coincidence of his shopping schedule,

Ackleitner happened to rescue the Missa Salisburgensis, or Salzburg Mass,

known today to be the largest surviving composition from the Baroque era.

It would come to be recognized as one of the most important historical works of music,

and it would certainly cement its composers' place as a master at the forefront of the most important historical works of music, and it would certainly cement its

composers' place as a master at the forefront of the era, if experts could figure out who wrote it.

Now that it was safely in his hands, Ockleitner could see that the work's expanse

was perhaps the least impressive thing about it.

The score called for no fewer than 53 parts

divided into seven ensembles.

It made heavy use of Antiphany, a form of call-and-response between competing sections

...