It is generally accepted that Anna Magdalena assisted her husband in transcribing music scores. But Martin Jarvis, a professor of music at Charles Darwin University in Australia, is making the bomb-shell claim that J.S. Bach’s second wife was far more than just a copyist.

After conducting forensic analysis of the ink and handwriting style in Bach manuscripts, Jarvis has concluded that three of Bach’s most celebrated works were actually penned by Anna Magdalena, who was his second wife: the aria from the Goldberg Variations; the first Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1) and possibly some of the Cello Suites.

Heidi Harralson, a forensic document examiner, backed Jarvis’s view, saying she is sure “within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty” that Anna Magdalena was most likely the composer of these works.

The researchers believe that, due to the nature of the corrections and the fact that the writing is light, she was actually composing the works as she wrote them down. They say that someone copying music would write in a heavy, slow style.