The Chorale Prelude

In Weimar around 1717, Bach turned the organist's pre-service paraphrase into a teachable genre

Related

BaroqueOrganCounterpointCadence

The chorale prelude was not invented on one day. In Bach's hands it became a numbered, teachable, copyable genre rather than an improvised warming-up before the service.

Time and place

Weimar, in the 1710s. Bach was court organist there and began the collection later titled Orgelbuchlein, planned to cover the church year and left with forty-six pieces. His cousin Johann Gottfried Walther was writing chorale preludes in the same town at the same time.

What happened

The method is simple. The organ takes a hymn tune the congregation knows and adds counterpoint, ornament and imitation around it, so the tune is heard before anyone sings and the organist has work to do. Sixteenth-century organists had already arranged chorales, and Scheidt and Buxtehude in the seventeenth century settled several types, with the tune in the top voice, in the bass, or ornamented. Bach kept each piece very short, built it from one motive, and added a doctrinal heading. The result was not a new invention but a searchable set of models.

What changed

Organists gained a standard textbook, and the pre-service improvisation became something that could be copied and published. Chorale tunes gained an independent instrumental life; Schumann, Brahms and Reger all wrote chorale preludes. The genre also separated congregational singing from expert performance, so the same tune could be sung by everyone and then interpreted by one instrument. Organists still play such pieces before a service, though often on the piano.

Listen for the turn

Begin with Bach's Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten, the tune in the top voice while three lines move beneath. Then Walther's setting, more ornamented and looser in rhythm. Finally Bach's In dulci jubilo, where a Christmas song becomes a dialogue between parts. The catalogue mostly offers piano or ensemble arrangements; listen to the part-writing, not the timbre.

Related

This turn belongs to Baroque; the instrument is the Organ, the craft Counterpoint and the phrase endings Cadence.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Chorale prelude" — genre types and dates checked, not quoted
• Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J. S. Bach (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. 2003) — Orgelbuchlein chronology checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.