Johann Sebastian Bach

The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade (1740–1750), from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The works form an encyclopedic collection of large-scale chorale preludes, in a variety of styles harking back to the previous century, that Bach gradually perfected during his career. Together with the Orgelbüchlein, the Schübler Chorales and the third book of the Clavier-Übung, they represent the summit of Bach's sacred music for solo organ.

Early versions of almost all the chorale preludes are thought to date back to 1710–1714, during the period 1708–1717 when Bach served as court organist and Konzertmeister (director of music) in Weimar, at the court of Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. As a result of encouragement from the Duke, a devout Lutheran and music lover, Bach developed secular and liturgical organ works of all forms, in what was to be his most productive period for organ composition. As his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach mentions in his obituary or nekrolog: "His grace's delight in his playing fired him to attempt everything possible in the art of how to treat the organ. Here he also wrote most of his organ works." During Bach's time at Weimar, the chapel organ there was extensively improved and enlarged; occupying a loft at the east end of the chapel just below the roof, it had two manual keyboards, a pedalboard and about a dozen stops, including at Bach's request a row of tuned bells. It is probable that the longer chorale preludes composed then served some ceremonial function during the services in the court chapel, such as accompanying communion.

When Bach moved to his later positions as Kapellmeister in Köthen in 1717 and cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723, his obligations did not specifically include compositions for the organ. The autograph manuscript of the Great Eighteen, currently preserved as P 271 in the Berlin State Library, documents that Bach began to prepare the collection around 1740, after having completed Part III of the Clavier-Übung in 1739. The manuscript is made up of three parts: the six trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530 (1727–1732); the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" BWV 769 added at the same time as the chorale preludes (1739–1750); and an early version of Nun komm' der heiden Heiland (1714–1717), appended after Bach's death.

The first thirteen chorale preludes BWV 651–663 were added by Bach himself between 1739 and 1742, supplemented by BWV 664 and 665 in 1746–7. In 1750 when Bach began to suffer from blindness before his death in July, BWV 666 and 667 were dictated to his student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol and copied posthumously into the manuscript. Only the first page of the last choral prelude BWV 668, the so-called "deathbed chorale", has survived, recorded by an unknown copyist. The piece was posthumously published in 1751 as an appendix to the Art of the Fugue, with the title "Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein" (BWV 668a), instead of the original title "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit" ("Before your throne I now appear").

The first verse of this Good Friday hymn, is a subdued prelude in four parts based on the cantus firmus, which appears explicitly in the soprano line over the flowing quaver accompaniment; in the second verse the cantus firmus moves to the alto line and the quaver figures become more lively; in the final verse, the pedal finally appears to take up the cantus firmus, beneath a four part fugal counter-subject in triplets, first in a forthright angular figuration, then in hammered repeated notes leading to an anguished chromatic passage, indicative of the crucifixion, and finally in peaceful flowing quavers.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eighteen_Chorale_Preludes#Chorale_Pr...).

I created this Transcription of the Choral Prelude (BWV 656) "O Lamm Gottes unschuldig" (Oh innocent lamb of God) for Pipe Organ.