18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales

In 1758 Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was the first to start preparing a published edition of Bach's four-part chorales, but in 1763 was prevented by royal duties.

Dissatisfied with his publisher Friedrich Wilhelm Birnstiel, he surrendered the manuscript rights in 1771 to Johann Kirnberger and his patron Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia.

Bach's posthumous publications in the second half of the eighteenth century, like those printed during his life, gave the impression of a readership aimed at connoisseurs with a "learned" expertise in keyboard music.

Amongst amateurs, there was a market for more popular, tuneful and approachable repertoire: amongst professional musicians, however, manuscripts continued to be circulated through hand copies.

The attempt at recruiting subscribers, musically well-versed in counterpoint, was again unsuccessful, with hardly thirty copies sold.

Already in 1709, as a youth in the Arnstadt Consistory, Bach had been scolded for having "made many curious variatones in the chorale, and mingled many strange notes in it, and for the fact that the congregation has been confused by it".

Marpurg employed the Berlin publisher Friedrich Wilhelm Birnstiel, using manuscript copies dating from 1758.

[9][10] The sixth and last movement of Bach's chorale cantata Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?

At that stage organist at the Leipzig Nikolaikirche, Becker's critical commentary was the first to discuss the manuscript sources prepared by Kirnberger and C. P. E. Bach, even if only in a general way.

At that stage organist at the Leipzig Nikolaikirche, Becker's critical commentary was the first to discuss the manuscript sources prepared by Kirnberger and C. P. E. Bach, even if only in a general way.

Franz Wüllner, however, the editor of the Bach-Gesellschaft responsible for the chorales, judged that Erk had gone too far in his criticism and had himself made mistakes.

Above all, in 1964 Peter Krause unearthed manuscript R 18 in the Musikbibliothek des Stadt Leipzig, the missing source for volumes III–IV of the 1784–1787 edition.

Staying within the limited scope of this account, the complicated picture underlying Bach's Chorales can be outlined in a few strokes.

Instead the honour fell to an alumnus of the Thomasschule zu Leipzig, unknown until the early 1960s, one of the choristers aimed at Bach's famous 1730 "Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music" ("Entwurf einer wohlbestallten Kirchenmusik").

[23] It was already known from Alfred Dürr to have been "Hauptkopist F",[24] Bach's principal copyist in the first half of the 1730s, who for example performed in the Christmas Oratorio.

[3] The fact that manuscript "R 18" originated in this way is entirely conclusive: the special musical notation, the watermarks, the repertoire from the Christmas Oratorio and the exact dating of one of the last chorales to be copied—the final movement of cantata "Was Gott micht mit die Zeit" (BWV 14), composed for 30 January 1735, that appeared as entry CXXIX in the manuscript.