BCW: The Chorale Project

November 18, 2018

The CM (Chorale Melody) and CT (Chorale Text) projects initiated by Tom Braatz and Francis Browne have been stopped several years ago. Along the years, I have received many questions and requests about these pages. I have realized that something should be done. So I took it upon myself, at least filling the many holes (missing CM & CT pages). I have dedicated most of my time in recent months to this challenging project. I am glad to inform you that phase 2 of the Chorale Project is finished.

a. I have created pages for all the CM's used by Bach in his vocal works.
The ref of the new CM pages is the Zahn number (and not the melody names)
Each CM page contains the background, image of the melody in Zahn, images from hymnals used by Bach, list of works in which the melody was used by Bach and their score images (usually BGA). See:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/index.htm

b. I have also finished working on the CT's used by Bach in his vocal works, including completing the German texts and many English translations (most of them are from the 19th to early 20th centuries). See:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/IndexTexts-Chorales-Title.htm

The background for each CT & CM page has been taken from BCW (mostly various discussions of the chorales), Charles Stanford Terry's 4 books on the Chorales and other sources I have found.

Along the way I have updated (or created) the hymn-writer/poet & composer pages with the info about the CT's/CM's they wrote/composed.

More tasks are planned: Adding CM & CT pages for melodies used in Bach's instrumental works, but not in his vocal works; Updating the relevant work pages; Updating the pages of all the movements using CT and/or CT; Adding to the CM pages works by other composers using CM used by Bach; Adding complementary info from various sources; Building cross-reference lists (by BWV, Zahn number, etc.) These tasks would have to wait because I have to take a break to handle the long backlog of tasks on my desk.

Any input from you all, including corrections, additions, completion of missing data, etc. would be most appreciated.

Enjoy,

Feedback to the Newsletter

Paul Farseth wrote (November 18, 2018)
Amazing. Thank you Aryeh

Francis Browne wrote: (November 21, 2018)
You are unstopable !how much work you have done on the cms and cts. <>

Jean-gabriel Puyraveau wrote (November 23, 2018)::
Merci Aryeh pour ce beau et grand travail et ce sîte Bach Cantatas devenu incontournable depuis de nombreuses années.

David Munderloh wrote (November 23, 2018):
Thanks for your tireless work!!

Carol Spade wrote (November 23, 2018):
Thank you so very much for this, the most in-depth website I have ever seen, Aryeh Oron. I have come to rely on it for information on the recordings and works of Bach Cantatas, and Masses, etc., the world’s greatest music from the person I consider the most important in all the world.

Antonio Quaranta wrote (November 24, 2018):
The Cantatas are listed in progressive order and have the same BWV number beginning from 1 to 224. The cantata n. 1 is BWV 1 etc.