List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach's vocal music includes cantatas, motets, masses, Magnificats, Passions, oratorios, four-part chorales, songs and arias.
His instrumental music includes concertos, suites, sonatas, fugues, and other works for organ, harpsichord, lute, violin, viola da gamba, cello, flute, chamber ensemble, and orchestra.
[1] The first separately published biography of the composer, by Johann Nikolaus Forkel, follows the same approach: its ninth chapter first lists printed works (adding four-part chorales which had been published in the second half of the 18th century), followed by a rough overview of the unpublished ones.
[3] This offered a unique identification of all Bach's known works, a system that was quickly adopted, for instance, by the biographers: Philipp Spitta used it complementarily to the Peters edition's numbering for the BG volumes that had appeared when he was writing his Bach-biography in the second half of the 19th century (e.g. "B. G., III., p. 173" for the above-mentioned Prelude in E-flat major), and Terry used it in the third Appendix to his 20th-century translation of Forkel's biography.
Wolfgang Schmieder, the editor of that catalogue, grouped the compositions by genre, largely following BG for the collation (e.g. BG cantata number = BWV number of the cantata):[5] For instance, the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major now became BWV 552, situated in the range of the works for organ.
Schmieder published the BWV's second edition in 1990, with some modifications regarding authenticity discriminations, and more works added to the main catalogue and the Anhang.
A strict numerical collation was abandoned to insert additions, or when for another reason compositions were regrouped.
For example, BWV 11, formerly listed as a Cantata, was moved to the fourth chapter of the main catalogue as an Oratorio.
Also authenticity discriminations, based on new research, could lead to such repositionings within the catalogue, e.g. "BWV Anh.
As of mid-2018 the Bach digital website started to implement the new numbers of the 3rd edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, which has been announced for publication in 2020.
[11] In the meantime, the New Bach Edition (Neue Bach-Ausgabe, abbreviated as NBA) was being published,[12][13] offering a new system to refer to Bach's works, e.g. NBA IV/4: 2, 105, which is Series IV, Volume 4, p. 2 (Prelude) and p. 105 (Fugue), for BWV 552.
[15] Occasionally works that have no BWV number can be identified by their BC number, e.g. BC C 8 for "Der Gerechte kömmt um" an arrangement attributed to Bach on stylistic grounds, however unmentioned in the BWV.
For Bach's larger vocal works (cantatas, Passions,...) research has led to some more or less generally accepted chronologies, covering most of these works: a catalogue in this sense is Philippe (and Gérard) Zwang's list giving a chronological number to the cantatas BWV 1–215 and 248–249.
[18] This list was published in 1982 as Guide pratique des cantates de Bach in Paris, ISBN 2-221-00749-2.
Of these around a thousand are original compositions by Bach, that is: more than a mere copy or transcription of an earlier work by himself or another composer.
In the 1950 first edition of the BWV the cantatas were largely listed according to their BGA number: Additionally Anh.
Bach wrote chamber music for solo violin, cello or flute, sonatas for harpsichord and an instrumental soloist, and trio sonatas: Bach wrote concertos and orchestral suites: Separate canons by Bach are listed in the 12th chapter of the BWV: The list of late contrapuntal works contains only two items: Additions as published in BWV2a BWV Anh.
190–213 were added between the 1950 and 1990s editions of the catalogue BWV numbers assigned after the publication of BWV2a: There is not much system in the way works derived from Bach's compositions are listed.
