Index to References to Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works
Bach Compendium

Description

Bach Compendium (BC) is a multi-volume reference work edited by Hans-Joachim Schulze and Christoph Wolff. Publication began in 1985, and by 1989 the four volumes of Part 1, covering the vocal music, had appeared. The BC is designed to provide comprehensive source-critical and bibliographical information on J.S. Bach's entire output, including sketches, drafts, lost works, and compositions of doubtful and spurious authenticity, as well as works from J.S. Bach's music library written by other composers. Arranged by genre, each entry in the BC concerns a single work, or version of a work, and differs from those of Schmieder in that authorship, dating, revision, and the like are all determined on the basis of particular sources and documents that are directly cited. The selected bibliographical references, mostly from after 1950, direct the reader to the general literature and to further discussions of all aspects of the work. Musical incipits represent each movement's important structural points. Cross-references direct the reader to other arrangements and to parodies. and a concordance of BC and BWV numbers is provided.

The BC appears to have stopped producing/updating its volumes in 1989. We are not aware of any additional research going into these volumes since that time which means that it is incomplete although all the categories for J.S. Bach’s complete works had already been established.

Division into Groups of Works

The works in BC are divided into the following work groups:
A - Cantatas for Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year
B - Sacred works for special occasions
C - Motets
D - Passions and 0ratorios
E - Latin church music
F - Chorales and sacred songs
G - Secular cantatas for court, nobility and bourgeoisie
H - Vocal chamber music
J - Free Organ Works
K - Chorale-based Organ Works
L - Keyboard Music
M - Chamber music for one instrument
N - Chamber music for duo or trio ensembles
O - Chamber music for larger ensembles
P - Canons
Q - Didactic works and exercises
R - Sketches and drafts
S - Original collections
D - Doubtful vocal works
U - Doubtful instrumental works
V - Spurious vocal works
W - Spurious instrumental works
X - Copies (and essentially straightforward arrangements) of vocal works by other composers
Y - Copies (and essentially straightforward arrangements) of instrumental works by other composers
Z - Contemporary collections

Published Volumes

As of September 2009, the following volumes of the Bach Compendium have been published (all at Edition Peters):

Band I

Vocal Works, Part I
Cantatas for Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year (A 1 to A 100)
Leipzig 1985, ISBN 3-369-00031-8 or Frankfurt/M. 1986, ISBN 3-876-26081-7

Band II

Vocal Works, Part II
Cantatas for Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year (A 101 to A 194)
Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-369-00032-6

Band III

Vocal Works, Part III
B - Sacred works for special occasions
C - Motets
D - Passions and 0ratorios
Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-369-00033-4 or Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-876-26083-3

Band IV

Vocal Works, Part IV
E - Latin church music
F - Chorales and sacred songs
G - Secular cantatas for court, nobility and bourgeoisie
H - Vocal chamber music
Leipzig 1989, ISBN 3-369-00051-2 or Frankfurt / M. 1989, ISBN 3-876-26084-1

Not Yet Published Volumes

Band V

Instrumental Works, Part I
J - Free organ works
K - Chorale-based organ works
L - Keyboard music

Band VI

Instrumental Works, Part II
M - Chamber music for one instrument
N - Chamber music for duo or trio ensembles
O - Chamber music for larger ensembles
P - Canons

Band VII

Miscellaneous
Q - Didactic works and exercises
R - Sketches and drafts
S - Original collections
D - Doubtful vocal works
U - Doubtful instrumental works
V - Spurious vocal works
W - Spurious instrumental works
X - Copies (and essentially straightforward arrangements) of vocal works by other composers
Y - Copies (and essentially straightforward arrangements) of instrumental works by other composers
Z - Contemporary collections

Use of BC Numbers

The OCC in one of its appendices with a complete listing of works includes the BC numbers only for J.S. Bach’s vocal works. This is where their chronological development is detailed in the BC. The BC are also presented in Göttinger Bach-Katalog and All Music Guide.

Christoph Wolff’s Bach biography as well as others do not refer to J.S. Bach’s works by BC number. The 1000-page Bach Handbuch, ed. Konrad Küster, Bärenreiter, 1999, does not use these numbers, nor do they supply any handy list with the BC and BWV equivalents. The BWV book does not include them either. Hans-Joachim Schulze, one of the editors of the BC, offers a concordance of BWV-BC equivalents only for the cantatas in his book on the cantatas published in 2006. Ulrich Prinz, in his book, J.S. Bachs Instrumentarium, 2005, which obviously covers instrumental as well as vocal works, does not use BC numbers. All of these examples demonstrate that the BC numbers are not essential in most situations where J.S. Bach’s works are being treated.

The list below of J.S. Bach's works sorted by BC group and BC number is presented for completeness of references for anyone looking up a Bach work (especilly the cantatas) from the BC number.

Sources:

Article on Bach Compendium by Reginald L. Sanders in Oxford Composer Companions - J.S. Bach, edited by Malcom Boyd (Oxfoird University Press, 1999), p 56 (OCC)
Bach-Compendium in German Wikipedia (retrieved: September 7, 2009)
Bach Compendium (see: Published Volumes above)

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Prepared by Aryeh Oron & David O. Berger [Concordia Seminary Library, St. Louis, MO, USA] (September 2009)