List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach
Not only are many works the chorales were extracted from no longer extant but there is no way of knowing how much of all the harmonisations that were once compiled the current collections include.
For example, there is no way of knowing how many of the 150 harmonisations first proposed for sale in 1764 also appear in Princess Anna Amalia's manuscript which ultimately forms the basis of the Breitkopf edition.
As to the chorale melodies with figured bass, current collections include less than one hundred of them whereas those proposed for sale in 1764 numbered 240.
In 1777 Johann Kirnberger started an active letter campaign to induce Breitkopf to publish a complete set of chorale harmonisations.
Kirnberger's letters emphasize his motivation to have the chorales printed in order to preserve them for the benefit of future generations.
The manuscript to be used once belonged to C. P. E. Bach, who sold it through Kirnberger to Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia (for twelve louis d'or).
Finally in some cases, for reasons unknown, whoever extracted the chorale from the larger work, changed the key of the setting.
A few chorale harmonisations had been published before Bach adopted them into his larger vocal works, and are therefore listed as spurious in the third annex of the BWV catalogue:[10][11] Several more harmonisations stay close to the version published by Vopelius: for example "Christus, der ist mein Leben", BWV 281, is a variant of the harmonisation found in the Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch, with added embellishments and the harmonic structure altered for one of the tune's four phrases.
For example, the melody of "Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost" also being known as "Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält" it is an editor's discretion whether BWV 256 is found early on[17] or near the end[18] of an alphabetically sorted collection.
Some of Bach's voice and thoroughbass settings published in Georg Christian Schemelli's 1736 Musicalisches Gesang-Buch are better known in their four-part realisation included in the chorale harmonisation collections.
C. P. E. Bach's selection of 371 chorale harmonisations was republished a few times in the 19th century, for instance by Carl Ferdinand Becker in 1832 (third edition),[20] and by Alfred Dörffel in 1870.
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, published in 1950, did not assign a separate BWV number to harmonisations contained in extant larger vocal works such as cantatas and Passions.
[28] A cross-reference between Lutheran hymns, their Zahn number,[29] and their appearance in compositions by Bach (including, but not limited to, the chorale harmonisations) can be found pp.
Four-part chorales also appearing as cantata movements composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (verse incipits, and their translations by Pamela Dellal, from the Emmanuel Music website unless otherwise indicated):[35] BWV 1/6: "Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh" ("How happy I am", v. 7 of "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern") • 2/6: "Das wollst du, Gott, bewahren rein" ("This, God, you would keep pure", v. 6 of Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein") • 3/6: "Erhalt mein Herz im Glauben rein" ("If my heart remains pure in faith", v. 18 of "Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid") • 4/8 • 5/7 • 6/6 • 7/7 • 9/7 • 10/7 • 12/7 • 13/6 • 14/5 • 16/6 • 17/7 • 18/5 • 19/7 • 20/7=/11 • 22/5 • 24/6 • 25/6 • 26/6 • 28/6 • 29/8 • 30/6 • 31/9 • 32/6 • 33/6 • 36/4 and /8 • 37/6 • 38/6 • 39/7 • 40/3, /6 and /8 • 41/6 • 42/7 • 44/7 • 45/7 • 46/6 • 47/5 • 48/3 and /7 • 52/6 • 55/5 • 56/5 • 57/8 • 59/3 • 60/5 • 62/6 64.
31: "Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir" [scores] from a doubtful version of BWV 130[36] • No.
• V/4 and /11 • VI/6 and /11 Somewhat less than 200 of Bach's chorale harmonisations only survived in early collections containing multiple, usually short, works.
The difference is that BWV 279, (near-)identical to BWV 158/4, was not retained in the BGA set: Provenance of standard texts and tunes, such as Lutheran hymns and their chorale melodies, Latin liturgical texts (e.g. Magnificat) and common tunes (e.g. Folia), are not usually indicated in this column.
