Chorale-Song Collections, Student Work
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Chorale-Song Collections, BWV 439-524, Student Work

William L. Hoffman wrote (October 14, 2018):
The heart of Bach's calling for a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God" was the Lutheran chorale, found earliest in his organ chorale preludes (c.1700-1710) that preceded the singing of chorales in the various services. The preludes constituted Bach's first hymn template for the church-year services as well as the catechism teaching and burial songs learned in his youth, followed by the four-part plain chorales composed for his service cantatas and the teaching, two-part figured bass chorales composed in Leipzig both types of harmonizations also served as pedagogical materials which Bach used to teach composition to his organ and cantor students and which they compiled and in turn used to teach their students. By Bach's time, the chorale hymnbooks in each community had the church-year format of the texts arranged to the de tempore (proper time) hymns of the ministry of Jesus Christ and the omnes tempore (ordinary time) hymns of the Christian Church's themes while increasingly having the musical settings in one voice (cantus), two (cantus and bass) or four-voice arrangements (cantus, alto, tenor, bass). Bach's favorite Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch of 1682 (NLGB, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Vopelius) included all types of settings and still found in today's hymnals. Meanwhile, the 1715 Gotha hymnal, Christian Witt Psalmodia sacra (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Witt-Christian-Friedrich.htm) which Bach followed in Weimar, had two-voice settings as the New Cantional with General Bass (http://www.orgelbuechlein.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Witt-160-Gen-Himmel-aufgefahren-ist.pdf.

Bach's earliest chorale repertory involved two hymnbooks: the Eisenach Gesangbuch of 1673 with only texts, no music, "the earliest hymnal Bach encountered," says Robin A. Leaver,¹ and the Gotha Cantional Sacrum, with 3, 4 and 5 voices, first published in 1646 and Bach's primary source in Eisenach. Both books' contents followed the hymnal order of the church year. The latter was used in the schools as well as the worship services "to which the schools were attached" and both were divided into three sections: music for the "Sunday feasts and fasts of the church year" and other services, Kirchenlieder based on the structure of theLutheran catechism for its preaching and teaching at the Vespers services, and funeral music as part of a "long-standing tradition" of school choirs singing in funeral procession from the house to the church to the cemetery, says Leaver (Ibid.: 362f). The 324 settings in the Gotha Cantional included 56 of Gotha pastor Bartholomäus Helder, 34 of chorale melody composer Melchior Vulpius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melchior_Vulpius), 15 of Michael Altenberg, 30 of Johann Hermann Schein (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schein.htm), Bach Leipzig cantor predecessor who provided many of the four-part settings later found in Bach's NLGB hymnbook; and 30 of chorale motet composer Melchior Franck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melchior_Franck), says Leaver (Ibid.: 364). "Bach grew up knowing the principal vocal settings of the Lutheran cantional tradition and that much of that was due to the work of Michael Praetorius, says Leaver (Ibid.: 366).

Bach's earliest settings of organ chorale preludes are found in his 1700-1710 Neumeister Collection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumeister_Collection), followed by the Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book) collection in Weimar, 1710-14 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgelbüchlein, http://www.orgelbuechlein.co.uk/the-missing-chorales/). He also had begun setting in Mühlhausen in 1708 chorale tropes of the cantus and biblical text in Cantatas BWV 71/2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cotTcxCL4DU), 106/3b (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyP-rsStojM: 1:57), and 131/2, and 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm84E2At9Zk: 4:21, 11:55), and the chorale chorus BWV 106/4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFRUAX4oHoc). In Weimar about 1713, Bach systematically began setting four-voice plain chorales to close his modern cantata settings for church services. By 1730, Bach had completed most of his church service cantata settings and composed free-standing chorales, BWV 253-428. Meanwhile, Bach's settings of chorales in his vocal works was both quite varied and pervasive, far more than his colleagues. For example, there is a category of cantata arias using chorale arrangement forms for soloists, particularly in troped recitatives and chorus, often with obbligato instruments playing the cantus as well as elaborated plain chorales in choruses with orchestral interludes such as Cantatas 140, 147, 75 and 76. The best example of multiple use of the same chorale is Easter Cantata 4, "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ lay in death's bonds), which dates to 1707 and includes settings of Luther's seven-stanza chorale as an instrumental sinfonia, chorale choruses, chorale arias (solo and duet), and plain chorale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH15Bm-M9WI).

Chorales, Devotional Songs, Student Copies

While Bach in the first half of the 1730s pursued drammi per musica and other comic profane works, in the spiritual realm he followed two chorale tracks. He began compiling four-part chorales from his sacred works as well as 186 free-standing new harmonizations, now BWV 253-438 (free-standing http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV250-438-Gen4.htm), that together would be compiled by son Emmanuel and Johann Philipp Kirnberger in an omnibus collection of 389 untexted plain chorale settings published by Breitkopf between 1784 and 1787 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chorale_harmonisations_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach, 186 four-part chorales in BGA Vol. 39, BWV 253-438).

Bolstering the format of two-part melody and bass in simplified harmonization found in various communal hymnbooks were the publication chorale collections most notably of Christoph Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann. Graupner published his Darmstadt Choral-Buch in 1728 with 146 simple, engraved settings for churches and schools (http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/tmp/pdf/Mus-1875.pdf). In 1730 in Hamburg Georg Philipp Telemann published his settings of Fast allgemeines Evangelisch-Musicalisches Lieder-Buch, 433 chorales handwritten in church-year order with melody and figured bass but with no text (https://books.google.com/books?id=lr9IAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=onepage&q&f=false, facsimile available). Two other, similar two-part choralbücher from this same period are the publications of Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel (Nuremburg, 1731) and Johann Balthazar König (Frankfurt 1738), says Leaver in another publication.

Bach also began his foray into the publication of the omnibus Schemelli Gesangbuch of 1with sacred-songs of personal, pietist emphasis. The impetus for this began with the poetic Passion setting of Gotha Kapellmeister Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel at Good Friday 1734 followed by one and possibly two Stölzel annual church-year cantata cycles. At the same time, Anna Magdalena entered many songs in her Notebook.

There were manifold reasons for Bach particularly to compile Lutheran hymn and sacred song settings related to the church year as well as for home use. In the initial case, the chorale in its various guises as congregational settings for voices and organ was a compendium of 200 years of church-year hymns for both the de tempore (proper time) and omnes tempore (ordinary time) halves of the church year, the organ settings were a template of chorale preludes to introduce the hymn-singing in the services, and Bach's exemplary harmonizations were his primary method of teaching composition to his students. In early 1735, Bach's student and main copyist Johann Ludwig Dietel (1713-1773, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Dietel-Johann.htm, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00003441) compiled a collection of 149 plain-chorale settings without texts as he completed his studies as a cantor. This collection first surfaced in the Leipzig Breitkopf publisher's 1761 Fall Catalogue under the category "Hymnen, Lieder, Gesänge" of "150 chorales in four-parts" on loan from Dietel for copying at a fee (see http://libguides.d.umn.edu/c.php?g=300712&p=2007709: "149 Choralsätze der Sammlung Dietel").² A listing shows chorales from cantatas, oratorios, motets, and 45 free-standing settings (BWV 257-436) as well as four previously unknown Bach settings now catalogued c.2000 as BWV 1122-1125, added to the Bach Work's Catalogue (BWV 1950; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QC-t4AJCY4), as part of 20 chorales that do not appear in Breitfkopf (1784-87) or Riemenschneider (1941).³ These also include 11 chorales from the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, presented in 1734-35, and as many as 10 chorales possibly from the St. Mark Passion, BWV 247 of 1731.

Devotional/Pietist Songs

The devotional sacred songs had followed a parallel tradition at the beginning of the Reformation with personal settings of the Bohemian Brethren and Martyrs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_the_Brethren) notably the 1531 hymnbook, Ein New Gesengbuchlen (Jung Bunzlau), of Michael Weiße (c1488-1534, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Weiße), whom Luther championed, followed in the mid-1650s with the devotional settings of Paul Gerhardt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gerhardt) and subsequently the Freylinghausen hymnbook in 1704 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Anastasius_Freylinghausen), which crystalized the songs of the pietist wing of the Lutheran Church (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietism). Sacred song settings of Stölzel and others are found in the Anna Magdalena Notenbüchlein, begun in 1725 primarily with keyboard partita settings while the sacred songs were entered mostly c.1734.

In the 50 years following Bach's death in 1750, Bach's students spawned a cottage industry of chorale copies and arrangements. One of Bach's last cantor students and an important copyist, Friedrich Christian Penzel (1737-1801, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Penzel-Christian-Friedrich.htm, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00004033), beginning about 1780 as cantor at Merseberg to compile a collection of 226, of which 30 sacred songs were published in the NBA III/3⁴ and are the final Nos. 195 to 226 in the Penzel collection. This group includes 18 from Bach student sources which have not been authenticated by Bach scholars and bear the designation BWV deest, while of the other 12, eight were copied from Schemelli, five from the NLGB as Leipzig sources, and three from other sources.⁵

The 30 "Dreißsig Choral- und Liedsätze aus der Sammlung von Christian Friedrich Penzel" are:⁶ "Ach Gott, tu dich erbarmen," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 215, D major, Christ's future judgement); "Ich weiß, mein Gott, daß all mein Tun," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 493, God's Reign & Provision); "Warum sollt ich mich denn grämen," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 630 , G Major, (Timely Cross and Suffering); O herre, Gott, begnade mich," BWV deest (Penitential Psalm 51 meditation, NLGB 257 https://books.google.com/books?id=UmVkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA676#v=onepage&q&f=false); "Welt, tobe, wie du willt," BWV deest (Philipp von Zesen 1649, CM "Wer nur den lieben Gott");"Ich bin ja, Herr, in deiner Macht," BWV 464; "Jesu, wollst uns weisen, BWV deest (Schemellis No. 439, Sacred Hour); "Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 176, Christ's Judgement in the Flesh); "Kommt, Seelen, dieser Tag," BWV 479; "Kommt wieder aus der finstern Gruft," BWV 480; "Jesu, deine Liebeswunden," BWV 471; Der Tag mit seinem Lichte," BWV 448; "O Christe, Morgensterne," BWV deest (NLGB 192, Evening Song https://books.google.com/books?id=UmVkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA546#v=onepage&q&f=false); "O Christe, Schutzherr deiner Glieder," BWV deest (Evening Song, CT ⁷ of Simon Dach; CM Johann Cruger 1653, Zahn 7994; ); "Herr, deinen Zorn wend ab von uns mit Gnaden," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 76, A Major, Trust Song); Zu dir von Herzensgrunde," BWV deest (NLGB No. 203, Evening Song https://books.google.com/books?id=UmVkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA567#v=onepage&q&f=false; "Nun laßt uns den Leib begraben," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 887, G Major, Death Song; see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Chorale-Passiontide.htm: "Weiße's Grave Song, Bach's Setting"); "Lasst die Kindlein kommen," BWV deest (NLGB No. 343, Death & Dying, https://books.google.com/books?id=UmVkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA880#v=onepage&q&f=false); "Brunnquell aller Güter," BWV 445; "Steh ich bei meinem Gott," BWV 503; "Lobt Gott in seinem Heiligtum," BWV deest (Schemellis No. 814, Praise & Thanks Songs); "Mein Jesu, was für Seelenweh," BWV 487; "O Trauerstund," BWV deest (Passion chorale, Tobias Zeutschner, before 1663, https://www.flickr.com/photos/51243943@N00/8576702187, Zahn 847; "So gehst du nun, mein Jesu, hin," BWV 500; "Selig, wer an Jesum denkt," BWV 498; "Beschränkt, ihr Weisen dieser Zeit," BWV 442; "O treuer Jesu, der du bist," BWV deest (NLGB No. 353, Death & Dying, https://books.google.com/books?id=UmVkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA905#v=onepage&q&f=false; "Ich weiß, daß mein Erlöser lebt (No. 930, Appendix, Ludwig Helmbold); and "Dich bet ich an, mein höchster Gott," BWV 449.

Other Choral-Buch Collections

Other collections of presumed Bach chorales have been studied in recent years. These include the "Sebastian Bach's Choral Book" (https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1773043/pdf) of 238 melodies with figured bass, possibly dating to the 1740s connections to Dresden and Bach students that appears to be "a workbook for learning how to create four-part settings" from two-part arrangements, says Leaver in another publication.⁸ In the Breitkopf New Year catalogue of 1764 to the Dietel collection was added the listing, "Complete Choral Book with notes set with Figured Bass comprising 240 melodies in use in Leipzig" (Leaver trans. 24; BDOK III, 165-66 [No. 711]), lost and unknown source. Leaver suggests (Ibid.: 24) that this source is the Sibley Choralbuch based on four common features: it is a comprehensive anthology for congregational use in the church year; the melodies with figured bass are in two-parts, the Choralbuch comprises 240 melodies while booksellers' catalogues of the 1730s contains 238, a close proximity; and Breitkopf's entry links "the repertory with Leipzig use."

Bolstering the format of two-part melody and bass in simplified harmonization found in various communal hymnbooks were the publication chorale collections most notably of Christoph Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann. Graupner published his Darmstadt Choral-Buch in 1728 with 146 simple, engraved settings for churches and schools (http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/tmp/pdf/Mus-1875.pdf). In 1730 in Hamburg Georg Philipp Telemann published his settings of Fast allgemeines Evangelisch-Musicalisches Lieder-Buch, 433 chorales handwritten in church-year order with melody and figured bass but with no text (https://books.google.com/books?id=lr9IAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=onepage&q&f=false, facsimile available). Two other, similar two-part choralbücher from this same period are the publications of Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel (Nuremburg, 1731) and Johann Balthazar König (Frankfurt 1738), says Leaver (Ibid.: 27-29).

Another two-part source is from a contemporary of Penzel and another final Bach student, Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809), whose Choralbuch collection of 189 chorale melodies with figured bass may have originated when the chorale basses and figures were created, possibly as early as 1756, when he became organist at the Barfußerkirche in Erfurt, says Leaver (Ibid.: 368; also see https://www.bachnetwork.org/ub8/UB8_McCormick.pdf).

Recently discovered is the 1762 collection of 167 Bach chorales in the hand of Carl Friedrich Fasch (1736-1800, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Christian_Fasch), deputy at the Prussian Court to harpsichordist Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. Its "significance lies in the fact that it not only predates other collections of Bach chorales such as the Birnstiel and Breitkopf editions, but it appears to have possibly been used as a source for such subsequent collections," says Luke Dahn (http://www.bach-chorales.com/Resources.htm).⁹ The Sebastian Bach chorale copies include settings from the cantatas, Passions, and oratorios, as well as free-standing arrangements (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002303). For details, see Thomas Braatz, "The History of the Breitkopf Collection of J. S. Bach’s Four-Part Chorales," BCW http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Breitkopf-History.htm.

Schemelli Gesangbuch, 1736

Bach also was involved in the omnibus Schemelli Gesangbuch with Breitkopf in 1736 of Georg Christian Schemelli (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Christian_Schemelli and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_6, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schemelli-Georg-Christian.htm), including a group of 69 engraved two-part devotional songs set to newer melodies with a personal, pietist perspective, BWV 439-507 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_and_arias_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach), as well as the completion of the family album, Anna Magdalena Notenbüchlein, BWV 508-518 begun in 1725 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_for_Anna_Magdalena_Bach). The two-part settings for canto and bass with figured bass also were the format (http://www.orgelbuechlein.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Witt-160-Gen-Himmel-aufgefahren-ist.pdf) found in Christian Friedrich Witt’s Psalmodia Sacra (Gotha, 1715), also known as the Gotha Hymnal, compiled by the Gotha Kapellmeister. The omnibus Breitkopf 1736 songbook involved 954 spiritual songs and arias for the church year involving well-known chorales as well as recent pietist sacred songs in the style of Freylinghausen usually set to well-known melodies. The 1736 publication promised that a second edition would contain about 200 engraved harmonized melodies in 302 settings to chorale incipits whose key is listed in the first edition next to the incipit and number, Leaver observes (Ibid.: 370f) but were never published probably due to the lack of sales of the first edition. A complete repertory of Schemelli proposed settings that Bach edited "can be compiled" "with reasonable certainty," says Leaver (Ibid.: 371), even though the actual harmonization is unknown "since Bach's manuscript collection of these melodies is no longer extant.¹⁰ But the later activities of some of his significant pupils may well shed some light on how Bach approached the realization of figured bass chorales." A comparison of 29 "Four–part Realizations of Two–part Schemelli Gesangbuch Chorales," may have originated as Bach teaching materials, says Luke Dahn http://www.bach-chorales.com/SchemelliRealizations.htm), including 11 found in the Penzel collection.¹¹

There is "a modern flavour in the devotional songs" of Schemelli, says Peter Williams.¹² The devotional book "signifies a move toward modern human-types and devotional songs in new kind of family hymnal presumably of interest to the capellmeister." Georg Christian "Schemelli was cantor at Zeitz, from where had come Anna Magdalena and the song 'Vergiss mein nicht'," BWV 505, Schemelli No. 627, Timely Cross and Suffering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kokCNSdWKZU, Cross & Suffering, 5 stanzas, text Gottfried Arnold (1714), Bach music, Zahn 4233), "as recalling the easy kind of melody Bach had created for the Anna Magdalena Books, possibly more suitable for Zeitz than Leipzig."

Varied Solo Songs, Arias, Chorales

The category of "Songs, Arias and Quodlibet," BWV 439-524 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_6), involved mostly devotional or special songs from the Schemellis Songbook, BWV 439-507; the second Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, BWV 508-518; the Five hymns from a manuscript by Johann Ludwig Krebs (BWV 519–523), and the wedding Quodlibet, BWV 524 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_and_arias_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach).

The Anna Magdalena 2nd notebook of 1725 "is a wide-ranging compendium of vocal and keyboard music and givesan invaluable glimpse into the tastes and teaching materials of the Bach family," says Douglas Cowling (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV508-523-Gen.htm: BCML Discussions in the Week of July 4, 2010). It was begin in 1725 but the listings were not entered on the pages chronologically. Instead they alternated with Bach keyboard works later found elsewhere (partitas and suites) and short works of other composers with most of the songs entered in the 1730s by Anna Magdalena.¹³ Bach's composing sons participated except for Friedemann who had his own keyboard notebook. The vocal music of original songs and chorales had the general theme of rest, from leisure to sleep and the final rest of eternity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvI9JaAsY_I). The settings for solo voice and continuo are: BWV 508, song "Bist du bei mir" (on a melody by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel); BWV 509, aria "Gedenke doch, mein Geist"; BWV 510-12, three settings of Paul Gerhardt's 1666 chorale "Gib dich zufrieden"; BWV 513, chorale "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort"; chorale "Schaffs mit mir Gott"; BWV 514, Benjamin Schmolck's 1725 hymn, "Schaff's mit mir, Gott, nach deinem Willen"; BWV 515 and 515a, two settings of aria "So oft ich meine Tobackspfeife"; BWV 516, aria, "Warum betrübst du dich"; BWV 517, Wolfgang Christoph Dreßler's 1692 sacred song, "Wie wohl ist mir, o Freund der Seelen"; and BWV 518, "Willst du dein Herz mir schenken," also known as "Aria di G[i]ovannini," authenticity doubtful.

Fünf geistliche Lieder are sacred songs (solo voice, continuo, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Krebs-Johann-Ludwig.htm) as collected by Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713–1780, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001776) and published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1917: BWV 519, Johann Arndt's "Hier lieg ich nun"; BWV 520, "Das walt' mein Gott" (Schemellis No. 8, Morning Song, 8 stanzas; BWV 521, Emilie Juliana, Countess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schwarzburg.htm), 1682 "Gott mein Herz dir Dank"; BWV 522, "Meine Seele, lass es gehen" (Schemellis No. 667, 6 stanzas, Patience & Serenity; melody "Herr, ich habe Mißgehandelt"); and BWV 523, "Ich gnüge mich an meinem Stande" (Schemellis No. 655, G Major, 11 stanzas, Patience & Serenity; melody "Wer nur den lieben Gott"). Krebs was a Bach student, player and copyist from 1726 to 1738 and finished his father Tobias' manuscript begun in Weimar, c.1710-14 with Johann Gottfried Walther.

Once attributed to Bach as BWV Anh. 32-39 is the Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau's collection of eight songs for voice and continuo, "Deutsche Übersetzungen und Gedichte"; Sieben geistliche Oden und ein Gedicht ((Breslau und Leipzig, 1704; http://www.tobis-notenarchiv.de/bach/19-Anhang_II/01-Vokalwerke/index.htm and https://imslp.org/wiki/7_Geistliche_Oden_und_ein_Gedicht,_BWV_Anh.32-39_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian). They are: "Getrost mein Geist," "Mein Jesus, spare nicht," "Kann ich mit einem Tone," "Meine Seele lass die Flügel," "Ich stimm' itzund ein Straff-Lied an," "Der schwarze Flügel trüber Nacht," "Das Finsterniß tritt ein," and "Ach was wollt ihr trüben Sinnen" (https://imslp.org/wiki/7_Geistliche_Oden_und_ein_Gedicht,_BWV_Anh.32-39_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian).

Conclusion

Bach's deep interest in hymns also involved the compilation of 185 free-standing chorales, BWV 253-438, the setting of undesignated pure-hymn Cantatas BWV 97, 100, 117, and 192 between 1725 and 1735, appropriate for full-bridal Masses, as well as hymn studies with his students), Johann Ludwig Dietel (1713-1773, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Dietel-Johann.htm), and the posthumous collection, Christian Friedrich Penzel (1737-1801, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Friedrich_Penzel). Recent research into chorale books of J. S. Bach's students and circle of pupils suggests that these keyboard workbooks formed a Bach composition teaching tradition that was continued by son Emmanuel and various students.

Further, in the late 1730s, Sebastian Bach created other special works such as the parody Missae: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233-236 and the German Lutheran foundation Organ Mass and Catechism, Clavierübung III, BWV 669-689, and the Six Schüler Chorales," BWV 645-650), organ transcriptions from trio chorale arias in cantatas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schübler_Chorales). These can be considered part of his Christological Cycle of major works or collections in a well-regulated church music. Eventually, Bach in the 1740s completed his B-Minor Mass and introduce through pasticcios/parodies Good Friday Passions and other music of sorrow, including works of other composers. Together, these liturgical chorale and personal, devotional sacred song collections could be considered one of Bach's last systematic compositional efforts to create a Christological cycle of Christ-centered, extended sacred works as part of his calling for a well-regulated church music. These works also involved oratorio Passion settings of John, BWV 245 (1724); Matthew, BWV 244 (1727); and Mark, BWV 247 (`1731); feast day oratorios for Easter, BWV 249 (1725), Christmas, BWV 248 (1734-35), and Ascension, BWV 11 (1735), as well as Mass Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 233-36 (late 1730s), and at least two Good Friday Passion pasticcios of Kesier-Handel and Carl Heinrich Graun etc. in the late 1740s, to which he contributed chorale and other brief settings, and the final "Great Catholic Mass" in B-Minor, BWV 232.

Other works that can be considered part of this Christological cycle are the church-year cantatas for the Marian Feasts based on canticles found in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke involving Jesus' incarnation: Visitation, July 6 with Mary's Magnificat (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/M&C-Visitation.htm); the feast of angel Gabriel's Annunciation, March 25 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/M&C-Annunciation.htm); and Purification (presentation), February 2, Simeon's Nunc dimittis ("Now, Lord, let thy servant depart," http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/M&C-Purification.htm), as well as the Feast (Nativity) of John the Baptist, June 24, with his father, Zachariah's, blessing and prophecy (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/M&C-Purification.htm).

FOOTNOTES

¹ Robin A. Leaver, Chapter 14, "Chorales," The Routledge Research Companion to J. S. Bach, ed. Leaver (London & New York: Routledge, 2017: 358-376).
² See also, Hans-Joachim Schulze, "150 Stück von den Bachischen Erben": zur Überlieferung der vierstimmigen Choräle Johann Sebastian Bachs, Bach Jahrbuch, vol. 69 (1983: 81ff).
³ Also see, bach-chorales.com, J. S. BACH CHORALES, ed. Luke Dahn (Salt Lake City: LuxSitPress, 2017: Indices I, Cross Indices, 14, Dietel-to Riemenschneider / Riemenschneider to Dietel: 209).
⁴ Bach, Choräle und Geistliche Lieder, NBA KB 3.1 (Frieder Rempp 1991; https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/product/details/BA5075_41/, details http://libguides.d.umn.edu/c.php?g=300712&p=2007709; 149 Choralsätze der Sammlung Dietel (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00003441) about 1735; Dreißsig Choral- und Liedsätze aus der Sammlung von Christian Friedrich Penzel (http://www.monarchieliga.de/index.php?title=Sammlung_Christian_Friedrich_Penzel#Die_bisher_unbekannten_S.C3.A4tze, translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.monarchieliga.de/index.php%3Ftitle%3DSammlung_Christian_Friedrich_Penzel&prev=search).
⁵ See Wolfgang Wiemer, "Ein Bach-Doppelfund: verschollene Gerber-Abschrift (BWV 914 und 996) und unbekannte Choralsammlung Christian Friedrich Penzels, Bach-Jahrbuch 73 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1987: 72f.
⁶ See Wolfgang Wiemer, Johann Sebastian Bach und seine Schule: neu entdeckte Choral- und Liedsätze aus der Bach-Choral-Sammlung (1780) von Christian Friedrich Penzel, Wiemer ed. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1985), music, contents (2 sacred songs, 12 Schemelli-Gesange, 18 chorales Bach students) http://swb.bsz-bw.de/DB=2.355/SET=1/PRS=HOL/SHW?FRST=7&COOKIE=U209,P2e6A,I94,B1493+,SY,NRecherche-DB,D2.355,Ec6b58292-1,A,H,R193.197.31.15,FY; https://www.stretta-music.com/bach-js-bach-und-seine-schule-nr-117473.html.
⁷ "O Christe, Schutzherr deiner Glieder" text, https://books.google.com/books?id=2qwCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA152&lpg=RA2-PA152&dq=O+Christe,+Schutzherr+deiner+Glieder&source=bl&ots=fBvr42QbHJ&sig=ZwkmlAjUxEbTewgL2YXpMHr2gbA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwig0Onqmv_dAhUD9IMKHc2mDY8Q6AEwAnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=O%20Christe%2C%20Schutzherr%20deiner%20Glieder&f=false.
⁸ Robin A. Leaver, "Bach’s Choral-Buch? The Significance of a Manuscript in the Sibley Library," in Bach Perspectives 12, Bach and the Organ, ed. Matthew Dirst (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016: 16-38), series publication of the American Bach Society.
⁹ See also, Luke Dahn, "Timeline of Events Related to the Transmission of Bach Chorales," http://www.bach-chorales.com/ChoralesTimeline.htm; "QUICK KEY TO THE EARLY CHORALE COLLECTIONS," http://www.bach-chorales.com/EarlyCollectionsKey.htm; "Resources & Databases," http://www.bach-chorales.com/Resources.htm; "Articles & Research," including "Chorale Scholarship Bibliography," http://www.bach-chorales.com/Articles.htm.
¹⁰ Schemelli bibliography http://swb.bsz-bw.de/DB=2.355/LNG=EN//CMD?ACT=SRCHA&INDEXSET=1&IKT=3020&TRM=FK%2081&COOKIE=U209,P2e6A,I94,B1493+,SY,NRecherche-DB,D2.355,E27151343-0,A,H,R193.197.31.15,FY; Schemelli Gesangbuch facsimile, https://www.amazon.com/Gesangbuch-Georg-C-Schemelli/dp/1376269228/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1539480111&sr=8-16&keywords=schemelli+gesangbuch
¹¹ A possible connection between the 240 Sibley Choralbuch two-part realizations and the proposed 200 harmonizations in a planed second edition of the Schemelli Gesangbuch is only a slight possibility. For example, the Sibley Choralbuch lists the Christmas hymn, “Laßt uns alle fröliche sein,” on page 23 in four stanzas with the Zahn melody 1161, according to Leaver, which also is found in Schemelli as No. 199 under the Birth of Jesus Christ showing all four stanzas with a harmonization in G Major, while this same 4-stanza chorale also is listed in Bach's NLGB as No. 29 for Christmas with the author Johann Forster (Wittenberg 1611) and a variant of Zahn melody 1161. There is no extant Bach setting.
¹² Peter Williams, "Leipzig, the middle years," Bach: A Musical Biography Cambridge University Press, 2016: 385).
¹³ Anna Magdalena Songs, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_for_Anna_Magdalena_Bach#Songs_and_arias,_BWV_508–518; texts and translations, BWV 508-524, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/IndexTexts9.htm.

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To Come: Bach's two "missing" church music cycles: Christological major liturgical works involving oratorios, Latin church music and chorale collections centering on Jesus Christ and a cycle of joy and sorrow occasional cantatas and motets for various special services.

Ed Myskowski wrote (October 15, 2018):
[To William L. Hoffman] Once again, a heartfelt thank you to Will for the tremendous repository of commentary and references he continues to provide.

Also once again, I cite my friend Dan Stepner's comment in his notes to his orchestration and performance of Art of Fugue this past summer, that listening (and especially playing) this music allows one to directly experience the depth of Bach's exploitation of the art of theme and variation, so much of which is based on the Lutheran Chorales as thematic material.

Charles Francis wrote (October 16, 2018):
William L. Hoffman wrote:
< Meanwhile, the 1715 Gotha hymnal, Christian Witt Psalmodia sacra>
You can download the complete hymnal here (PDF): https://tinyurl.com/y9rrs9qt