Two of Toronto’s most wanted men have been found.A pair of stained-glass portraits of Bach and Beethoven that once graced the windows of Massey Hall, presumed lost forever, have been found safely stowed away deep in the basement of Roy Thomson Hall. The portraits were last seen, records suggest, nearly 30 years ago in the basement of Massey Hall’s Albert Building, which was meticulously emptied, then demolished, during the first phase of the venue’s $139-million, multi-year renovation, which was completed in 2016. It seemed likely the artworks were lost or broken sometime in the intervening years, or, even worse, still in the building when it came down.“I would love to find those windows, but there’s no place else to look,” the director of operations of Massey and Roy Thomson, Grant Troop, told the Star earlier this year.Now, after their discovery, Bach and Beethoven are being restored to their former glory.To understand the true significance of these works of art, and this (now solved) history mystery, you need to go back to June 14, 1894: The opening night of the brand-new Massey Music Hall.The crowd rose to applaud the last triumphant “hallelujahs” of Handel’s Messiah. Summer-evening sun streamed in through stained-glass windows depicting Handel himself, plus 11 other giants of Western music: Mozart, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Chopin, Weber, Schubert, Gounod, Wagner, Haydn, Beethoven and Bach. In the days before air conditioning and modern deodorant, they served a very practical purpose: They could be vented to let in air. Just about every opening from the hall to the outside world was filled with stained glass, even the stairwells, for a total of more than 100 windows, said Shirley Ann Brown, a York University art history professor who has written about Massey Hall’s design and its significance. But the inset composer portraits, painted by hand in lead, enamel, glass and silver, were the most special and ...
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