The Bach Tonal Chorales

Johann Sebastian Bach had three phases to his career. During the middle period he
worked for the court and composed much secular and instrumental music. During the first
and third periods he worked for the Lutheran Church and composed a great deal of sacred
music for both Sunday services and significant festive occasions. As part of this output, he
routinely harmonized and used the commonly known hymn tunes of his day, sung in the
vernacular language of the people (German) and set with a keen ear towards the
emotional meaning behind any given text.
These 371 chorale harmonizations, extracted from hundreds of cantatas, passions and
other sacred works, have for centuries served as models for exquisite tonal harmonic
thinking. By understanding the way Bach connects harmony through perfectly clear,
independent voice leading and word painting, generations of musicians and composers
have deepened their knowledge of the craft.

C major Prelude from WTC 1

A perfect introduction to understanding the harmony of the Bach Chorales is to investigate
the harmony of the C major prelude from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
When we take the arpeggiated passages and reduce them to block harmony, we have
essentially a straightforward chorale in C major. Notice how all five voices move smoothly
from harmony to harmony. A great exercise for all of you would be to play through this
reduction and, in turn, sing through all five parts, transposing octaves as needed.
Herzliebster Jesu
You have by now analyzed the Chorale Herzliebster Jesu, comparing Cruger's original
harmonization with Bach's much more chromatic version. Here is the completed analysis.
Notice how the original melody, which was in G Dorian, becomes firmly rooted in the idea
of G minor tonality.

Again, please listen to this while you review the analysis. It's meaningless to only
understand this on paper. Hear the way the harmonies tug at each other and move the
chorale towards the various cadence points. Note too, as happens all the time in minor
key chorales, that the cadences on Bb major sound more like temporary shifts of tonic to
the relative major key, prepared in the first case by a vii7/V and in the second case by a
IV chord.
Bach Modal Chorales
One of the fascinating aspects of Bach's art is to observe his harmonization of centuries
old melodies which were originally based on the older Church modes. This beautiful
melody, one Bach's favorites, was composed by Leo Hassler in 1601, at the very beginning
of the Baroque era, but clearly rooted in modal thought. If you go to the Burkhart
anthology, you will see the original version, paired measure by measure with Bach's
realization below.
If you look at just the melody, you will notice something striking: it begins and ends on an
E, and thus is in fact a Phrygian melody, full of F naturals. Bach, while setting the melody
in A minor, allows the piece to cadence on an E major triad, obstensibly the V chord, but
also perhaps the tonic if one thinks of it as in E. This is a wonderful example of the cross-
fertilization of tonal and modal thinking.

The translation of the text that Bach used for this particular harmonizationthere are
many othersshows the deep emotion behind the music. It speaks about the universal
mystery (and fear) of death and is a supplication based on much anquish. The music,
especially the poignant harmony, supports the text beautifully.
Notice in this analysis that there are two passages that are probably best analyzed in the
key of C, since there is a clear feeling of Cness (with C as tonic) in these. This is quite
normal, that harmony can shift easily between relative major and minor. When you listen
to this while watching the score and the analysis, try very hard to hear this shift between
the two modes. There is a lot about tonal music you will understand if you are clear about
the way major and minor interact with each other in this chorale.
O Sacred Head Now Wounded (O Haupt v
oll Blut und
Wunden).