Orgelbüchlein

All but three were written between 1708 and 1717 when Bach served as organist to the ducal court in Weimar; the remainder and a short two-bar fragment came no earlier than 1726, after the composer’s appointment as cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig.

Simply by the precision and the characteristic quality of each line of the contrapuntal motive he expresses all that has to be said, and so makes clear the relation of the music to the text whose title it bears.Orgel-Büchlein Worrine einem anfahenden Organisten Anleitung gegeben wird, auff allerhand Arth einen Choral durchzuführen, an- bey auch sich im Pedal studio zu habi- litiren, indem in solchen darinne befindlichen Choralen das Pedal gantz obligat tractiret wird.

[5] After a brief spell in Weimar as court musician in the chapel of Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Bach was appointed as organist at St. Boniface's Church (now called the Bachkirche) in Arnstadt in the summer of 1703, having inspected and reported on the organ there earlier in the year.

During the period before his return to Weimar, Bach had composed a set of 31 chorale preludes: these were discovered independently by Christoph Wolff and Wilhelm Krunbach in the library of Yale University in the mid-1980s and first published as Das Arnstadter Orgelbuch.

Below is the first verse of Martin Luther's version "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ" (1524) of the traditional Christmas hymn Gratis nunc omnes reddamus, with the English translation of Myles Coverdale.

In the two closing bars, there is a fleeting appearance of figures usually associated with crucifixion chorales, such as Da Jesu an dem Kreuzer stund, BWV 621: semiquaver cross motifs[16] in the upper parts above delayed or dragging entries in the pedal.

The rich and complex harmonic structure is partly created by dissonances arising from suspensions and occasional chromaticisms in the densely scored accompanying voices: the motifs are skillfully developed but with restraint.

Both Williams (2003) and Stinson (1999) concur with the assessment of Spitta (1899) that "fervent longing (sehnsuchtsvoll Innigkeit) is marked in every line of the exquisite labyrinth of music in which the master has involved one of his favourite melodies."

As Honders (1988) has pointed out, when composing this chorale prelude Bach might have had in mind one of the alternative more intimate texts for the melody such as Jesu, meine Freude, wird gebohren heute, available in contemporary Weimar hymnbooks and reprinted later in Schemellis Gesangbuch of 1736.

In the sixth bar the soprano and the bass play the highest and lowest notes in the Weimar organ's register, the two C's above and below middle C. The Bach scholar Hermann Keller has described the resulting musical texture as the most ethereal in the Orgelbüchlein.

Commentators have suggested how the musical form echos the themes of the hymn—the cantus firmus reflecting the mystery of the incarnation, Christ hidden in Mary's womb, and its chromaticism the purity of the virgin.

The widely spaced polyphonic texture has been taken as a musical depiction of Sedulius' poetic lines A solis ortus cardine, ad usque terræ limitem—"From the hinge of the rising sun, To the farthest edge of the earth".

For Schweitzer (1911a) the opening motivic accompaniment "entwines the chorale melody in a consummately effective way and embraces a whole world of unutterable joy", the adagio is a "mystical contemplation", and the motifs "a joyous exaltation in the soprano".

Williams (2003) suggests that the grieving mood might possibly reflect tragic events in Bach's life at the time of composition; indeed in 1713 his first wife gave birth to twins who died within a month of being born.

Renwick (2006) takes a different approach, suggesting that Bach's choice of tonal structure leads the listener to expect the E's that end the chorale prelude to be answered by A's, the notes that start it.

Below is the first verse of Martin Luther's version of the Nunc dimittis, Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, a text associated with the Epiphany-tide feast of the Presentation in the Temple, together with an English translation by Catherine Winkworth.

Spitta (1899) wrote that Christ's hanging on the cross "is represented by the heavy, syncopated notes" and takes this as "evidence of a wonderfully true aesthetic feeling" [in Bach], since "that enforced quietude of direst anguish was no real calm."

Similar motifs and handling of voices occur at the close of Von Himmel hoch, da komm ich her, BWV 606: although that Christmas hymn primarily concerns the incarnation of Christ, later parts of the text foreshadow the crucifixion.

The closing phrase, with its mounting chromatic bass accompanying bare unadorned crotchets (quarter notes) in the melody to end in an unexpected modulation to C♭ major, recall but again go beyond earlier compositions of Pachelbel, Frohberger and Buxtehude.

At a faster tempo, as has become more common, the mood becomes more exultant and vigorous, with a climax at the words Gott loben und dankbar sein ("praise our God right heartily"), where the music becomes increasingly chromatic.

Below are the first and third verses of the Lutheran hymn Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend by Wilhelm, Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1648) with the English translation of John Christian Jacobi.

BWV 632 is written for single keyboard and pedal with the cantus firmus in the soprano part: it starts with a characteristic triad, at first concealed by the intermediate notes of the legato dotted rhythm.

The same suspirans triad motif, like a broken chord or arpeggio, forms the basis of the accompaniment in the two inner voices: the imitative responses between the parts providing a steady flow of semiquaver figures, rising and falling, melifluous and sweet.

The reprise of the second part differs from the hymn as it appears in hymnbooks; but the stream of repeated triadic motifs—which Schweitzer (1911a) interpreted as constant repetitions of Herr Jesu Christ—add to the mood of supplication in the chorale prelude.

Hermann Keller has suggested that Bach might have employed the canon as musical iconography for the plea to be "led" at the end of the first verse: und uns den Weg zu Wahrheit führ ("and lead us on the path of truth").

The penitential text, written in the Nuremberg of Hans Sachs and the Meistersingers where Spengler was town clerk, is concerned with "human misery and ruin," faith and redemption; it encapsulates some of the central tenets of the Lutheran Reformation.

Stinson (1999) and Williams (2003) speculate that this chorale prelude and the preceding BWV 637, written on opposite sides of the same manuscript paper, might have been intended as a pair of contrasting catechism settings, one about sin, the other about salvation.

BWV 640 is the only occasion he used the melody in the minor key, which can be traced back to an earlier reformation hymn tune for Christ ist erstanden and medieval plainsong for Christus iam resurrexit.

As Spitta (1899) comments, "What tender melancholy lurks in the chorale, Alle Menschen müßen sterben, what an indescribable expressiveness, for instance, arises in the last bar from the false relation between c♯ and c', and the almost imperceptible ornamentation of the melody!"

This texture of flowing scales over a "quasi-pizzicato" bass captures the theme of the hymn: it is a reflection on the transitory nature of human existence, likened to a mist "gathered in an hour together, and soon dispersed."