Bach chorales
Study Bach's own chorales
The quickest way to write like Bach is to see what he did with the same kind of melody. Here are sixteen of his chorales to start with, and where to find all of the others.
How to use them
- Open a chorale and copy out the soprano line only. Do not look at the lower parts yet.
- Mark each pause, decide the cadence at each one, then harmonise the melody yourself.
- Put your version through the Chorale Checker and fix what it finds.
- Now compare with Bach, one phrase at a time. Label his chords, and ask at each difference what his bass line or his chord gains over yours.
Major keys
| Chorale tune | BWV | No. in the 371 | Key | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aus meines Herzens Grunde | 269 | 1 | G major | Separate chorale |
| Ich dank dir, lieber Herre | 347 | 2 | A major | Separate chorale |
| Christus, der ist mein Leben | 281 | 6 | F major | Separate chorale |
| Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist | 248.12 | 9 | G major | Christmas Oratorio |
| Nun danket alle Gott | 386 | 32 | A major | Separate chorale |
| Ach Gott und Herr | 255 | 40 | C major | Separate chorale |
| O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden | 244.54 | 74 | F major | St Matthew Passion |
| Valet will ich dir geben | 245.26 | 108 | E flat major | St John Passion |
| Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme | 140.7 | 179 | E flat major | Cantata 140 |
| Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott | 80.8 | 273 | D major | Cantata 80 |
| Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern | 436 | 278 | E major | Separate chorale |
| Nun ruhen alle Wälder | 392 | 289 | B flat major | Separate chorale |
Minor keys
The tune Herzliebster Jesu is here twice. Compare the two settings to see how many ways Bach found to harmonise one melody.
| Chorale tune | BWV | No. in the 371 | Key | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Herzliebster Jesu | 245.3 | 59 | G minor | St John Passion |
| Herzliebster Jesu | 244.3 | 78 | B minor | St Matthew Passion |
| Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten | 434 | 146 | A minor | Separate chorale |
| Jesu, meine Freude | 227.1 | 263 | E minor | Motet, BWV 227 |
Keys are the original keys. The printed 371 sometimes puts a chorale in a different key. Each link opens the score and its source details on bach-chorales.com.
Worth knowing
- More than 400 of Bach's four-part chorales survive. Just over half come from larger works that we still have, such as the cantatas, the Passions and the Christmas Oratorio. Nearly 200 survive only in collections published after his death.
- Bach wrote very few of the tunes. Almost all were Lutheran hymn melodies that his congregation already knew, which is why you are given a melody to harmonise and not asked to write one.
- “The 371” is the collection edited by his son C.P.E. Bach and published by Breitkopf in four volumes between 1784 and 1787. The Riemenschneider edition of 1941 keeps the same numbering, which is the number most harmony books quote.
- In the cantatas and Passions, instruments doubled the four voice parts, with a continuo underneath. The published collections left the instruments out.
- Bach did not always keep the rules. Early editors “corrected” several consecutive 5ths in his chorales. An examiner will not give you the same freedom, so keep checking for them.
Find any other chorale
- bach-chorales.com, by the music theorist Luke Dahn, has every chorale with its score, and indexes by tune, key, metre and date.
- The full list by BWV number, on the same site, with an introduction to the chorales.
- The index by key, useful when you want more practice in one key.
- Wikipedia's list of Bach's chorale harmonisations gives the history of the collections and matches the different numbering systems.
The facts on this page come from those two sources. The scores and commentary on bach-chorales.com belong to its author, so this site links to them and does not copy them.