List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach printed during his lifetime
Christoph Wolff has suggested three reasons: firstly the financial support from municipal councils or noble patrons available to previous generations had diminished in Germany as a result of the Thirty Years War; secondly the expense of printing contrapuntal keyboard music which, at that time in Germany, was more often typeset than engraved; and lastly the low number of potential customers for works that were often technically difficult and unconventional.
[5] Bach's personal copies, often containing handwritten corrections or additions, have been recovered for several of his printed works.
After his death in 1750, manuscript copies of keyboard and vocal works were made by professional copyists and distributed by musical publishing firms, especially Breitkopf (Leipzig), Traeg (Vienna) and Westphal (Hamburg).
This in turn led to the appearance of printed editions of his works, beginning with the publication of Bach's four-part chorales in the second half of the eighteenth century.
The fact that Bach had published representative samples of his music for keyboard instruments contributed to his fame, and to an increased demand for such works after his death.
[7][8] In Bach's obituary, which was published four years after the composer's death, printed and unprinted works are listed separately: the list of engraved compositions contains eight items, all of them instrumental works, and concludes with The Art of Fugue, which had been printed shortly after the composer's death.
[9] A comparable list, starting with the same eight items, appeared half a century later in Johann Nikolaus Forkel's Bach-biography.
[5][2] The eight publications listed in Bach's obituary included The Art of Fugue which was in fact published shortly after the composer's death.
[36][58] The Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her", BWV 769, for organ, were published on the occasion of Bach's admission to Mizler's "Society of the Musical Sciences" in 1747.
