List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach

The List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach consists of 189 chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach which have been assigned the numbers 250–438 in the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV), the catalogue of Bach's works by Wolfgang Schmieder. There are many more chorale harmonisations to be found in Bach's cantatas, motets, passions and in his collection Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, but the works in this list are not attached to any larger work or that larger work has been lost. Almost all of the melodies of these chorales are not by Bach but go back to older sources.

Another well known collection of chorale melodies is the Schemellis Gesangbuch (Schemelli's Hymnal), or Geistliche Lieder (Sacred Songs), published in 1736 by Georg Christian Schemelli (c. 1678–1762). These are not four-part harmonisations like the ones in this list but chorale melodies and a basso continuo; again, almost none of those melodies are by Bach.

The composer and musicologist Johann Kirnberger (1721–1783) compiled a list of chorale preludes: see BWV 690–713.

History

C.P.E. Bach published with Breitkopf from 1784 to 1787 a four volume collection of J.S. Bach's chorales, ostensibly 371 in number, but in fact 348. About half of them have their origin in other works of Bach; the other half is presented in the table below, although an origin can now be attributed to six of them.

Prior to this publication, several other collections had been published, starting with 100 chorales in 1765 by F.W. Birnstiel in Berlin, edited by C.P.E. Bach. A second volume of 100 was issued by the same publisher in 1769, edited by J.F. Agricola, which was heavily criticised by C.P.E. Bach. In 1777 Johann Kirnberger campaigned to introduce Breitkopf to publish a complete set of chorale harmonisations. The manuscript to be used once belonged to C.P.E. Bach, who sold it through Kirnberger to Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia. After Kirnberger died in 1783, C.P.E. Bach became Breitkopfs's editor for these chorales, which he then published in four parts: 1784: nos. 1–96, 1785: nos. 97–194, 1786: 195–283, 1787: 283–370 (no. 283 was mistakenly used twice). This publication went through four editions and countless reprintings until 1897. Additionally, several other editions using the original C-clef or different texts were also published. The Bach Gesellschaft published the original 371 chorales from the C.P.E. Bach edition in volume 39 of their Complete Works in 1892. The most significant recent publication is Dr. Charles Sanford Terry's J.S. Bach's Four-Part Chorales, Oxford University Press 1929, which contains 405 harmonised chorales and 95 melodies with figured bass. The most widely known collection is Albert Riemenschneider's 371 (1941).

The table below provides a cross reference of those compilations with the works in this range of BWV numbers, although those compilations also contain many other chorales not in this range.

Chorale harmonisations (BWV 250–438)

See also

• List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
• List of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1–231)
• List of songs and arias of Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 439–518)

References

• Johann Sebastian Bach's Werke (BGA), Bach-Gesellschaft Leipzig, ed. Franz Wüllner, Breitkopf & Härtel, vol 39 (1892) and Schlußband (final volume) (1899).
• Bach – 371 Harmonized Chorales and 69 Chorale Melodies with Figured Bass, ed. Albert Riemenschneider, G. Schirmer, NY, 1941.
• Johann Sebastian Bach, 389 Chorales, Kalmus K06002, Belwin Inc, 15800 NW 48th Ave, Miami, FL 33014
• J.S. Bach, Four-Part Chorales, Editio Musica Budapest, 1982, ed. Imre Sulyok
• "Other Vocal Works sorted Thematically", Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta
• "Index to Texts and Translations of Bach Cantatas and Other Vocal Works – Part 7: Chorales BWV 250–438"

External links

• Thomas Braatz: "The History of the Breitkopf Collection of J. S. Bach’s Four-Part Chorales", September 2006; retrieved 21 May 2009.
• Scores in Capella format (German) (English) (Russian)
• Chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.