Bach Chorale Analysis

In the summer of 2018 I happened across a video of Glenn Gould playing Bach's Keyboard Concerto in D minor BWV 1052; in autumn 2019 I applied to study music at Cambridge University, and a few months later I received an offer. This anecdote is not to say that such began my academic pursuit of music; to the contrary, such it promptly ended, with my opting for (what I had decided was) the more sensible pursuit of maths and physics. It is, however, to exemplify how rapidly I developed an interest in classical music: indeed, in just over a year I went from knowing nothing about Bach to knowing enough about him to qualify me for a music degree. After all, a thorough understanding Bach necessarily gives rise to a thorough understanding of music theory.

This is no doubt the reason why A-level music requires that you either study Bach's chorales or his counterpoint. My music teachers chose the chorales, a decision I initally very much lamented, having fallen, as a pianist, for Bach via his keyboard works; however, I just as quickly fell for the chorales, growing equally obsessed with Bach's harmonic language as his counterpoint. Still, the chorales are one of my favourite parts of his oeuvre: I'm in awe that the chorales happen to constitute such a literal and distilled embodiment of Bach's harmonic language, and that they happen to exist so matter-of-factly within the scope of the cantatas; indeed, how lucky that monophonic hymn melodies happen to exist within the scope of congregational practice. 

This is all to say that the weekly lesson spent analysing Bach's chorales was my favourite part of A-level music. Therein we were taught a series of common cadential phrases, in particular 'stock' chord progressions Bach often deferred to in harmonising them; then, if we encountered these cadential melodies in our final exam, we would be able to harmonise them quickly and accurately by replicating Bach's harmonies. Below is a spreadsheet I made, initially to summarise these lessons.

Every week we were taught a new cadential melody, along with some chord progressions Bach frequently used to harmonise it. The first page of the spreadsheet, 'Fingerprints', consists of these melodies and corresponding stock progressions. We were then sent home with the task of harmonising this cadence ourselves, using the progressions we had learnt. The exercise involved choosing and/or adjusting the stock progression appropriately, based on the given cadential melody. The challenge lay primarily in the key of the phrase, for example in choosing a particular progression suited for a minor key, or adjusting a major-key progression accordingly, or in choosing and/or adjusting a progression based on the register of the melody, ensuring the middle voices work well within the constraints of the melody and bassline.

I quite quickly became sated with extent of the challenge, and with the stock phrases altogether; I began trawling through Bach's chorales to find instances of these melodies where Bach had harmonised them differently. After all, if the task at hand was to replicate Bach's harmonisations, I thought I may as well find some more imaginative harmonisations to replicate.

And thus I began keeping a record of these alternative, sometimes unique progressions: I called these 'one-offs',  and they can be found on the second page of the spreadsheet. 

Initially I was only analysing the cadences in each chorale, as our assignments only involved harmonising cadences, but soon I started analysing the chorales in their entirety, entirely irrespective of the assignments. I began working through the chorales semi-methodically, choosing ones that sounded particularly interesting. These chorale analyses can be found on the third page of the spreadsheet, with hyperlinks which I believe you can access. Each chorale is accompanied by its Riemannschneider number, BWV number, key, and a short list of highlights.

The final page is a collation of various resources I used and other miscellaneous notes. 

Enjoy!

(Below is a website I started making as a catalogue of my analyses; hopefully I will one day analyse all of Bach's chorales and finish making the website.)