Talk:List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach

Hợp xướng của Johann Sebastian Bach seems to be the same list more or less. (It links to the article on that site on JS Bach.) Schissel | Sound the Note! 04:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Stanzas
What do you think of leaving just the name of the hymn in a first column, and have the verse (strophe? stanza? - I use verse for biblical verses) in a second, and possibly the incipit of that stanza (and perhaps even a translation of the incipit) in a third (fourth)? As Albert Schweitzer remarked, Bach's setting is of that particular stanza, depending on its wording, not of the first. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:04, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Stanza incipits would be interesting, we did that for instance in Chorales in St Matthew Passion. Nonetheless, for the list(s) on this page I'd try to limit table width (there are going to be around 400 table rows... which will be unwieldy enough I suppose). Maybe rather something for the separate Lutheran chorale articles: including lists of which verse appears where in Bach's (and/or other composer's) work may be a useful addition there. Similar for translations. Stanza numbers are part of the sortability of the first column: putting such numbers in a separate column would make no sense for sorting the table as a whole. It could be handled with columnspans & sort keys as in the Chorales in St Matthew Passion table, but that is quite elaborate for something that only would apply to a limited set of rows (i.e. a lot of work for a rather limited improvement of the list – and a column more, which I'd avoid). Re. verse/strophe/stanza: just following convention of the English-language sources here.
 * Re. "Bach's setting is of that particular stanza, depending on its wording" – true, yet the extraction of settings of chorale melodies separate from that context already started in Bach's time (e.g. Dietel collection), and by the time most of them were published in the second half of the 18th century that context was (and still is) lost for more than half of the harmonisations. Again, too much detail for a list I suppose (and again, only applicable for a limited set of the items in this list): in this case better suited for the movement discussions in the respective cantata articles (which would cover almost all known contexts for such harmonisations). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:10, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Link to movement
The above understood, how about linking to the particular movement (which if a good article has the incipit and its translation, sometimes even text and translation), also or instead of to the whole cantata. I'll make examples for both. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:39, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This needs checking the cantata article whether there is a subsection for the movement, e.g. BWV 8 doesn't make sense while there is no movement 6 subsection. I'd first build the table: this seems a nice addition for later, if someone wants to take the time to check for each cantata article whether the deep link makes sense or not. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:07, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Started adding such info/links in the List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach section, for the first three chorales known from cantatas. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:34, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Chorale cantata
How about indicating that the cantata is a chorale cantata? Bold chorale title, or bold BWV number, or add something like Ch to the BWV number, for examples. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:58, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, bold the verse number in the first column when that verse is the last one of the hymn: the "hymn text" column is not about the type of cantata, but about the hymn text. A bolded verse number would then most often indicate a chorale cantata. I'd rather avoid additions to the BWV number column, for width, but also because the main topic of this list page is the (mostly context-less) chorales BWV 250–438 (not the chorales in the range BWV 1–249, which have more extended descriptions elsewhere): the BWV numbers in the BWV 250–438 range are most likely not going to be linked, thus could maybe be bolded. General principle: avoid bolding and linking the same expression. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:07, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I would not bold the verse number, because the one thing different for chorale cantatas is that all verses are basis for the composition, and the final verse just the four-part setting as part of it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:35, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes; Which is not the topic of this page (see Chorale cantata (Bach), Chorale cantata cycle, Church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, Church cantata (Bach), etc. explaining and/or linking the chorale cantata context). This page is about the four-part chorale harmonisations: if "deriving from a chorale cantata" would be a significant subtype of chorale harmonisations (which it is not afaik) then this distinction would make sense for this list: as chorale harmonisation format I don't think there is much of a difference, for instance, between BWV 1/6, 36/4 or 436... (if there would be I think scholarly literature would be full of informed guesses about the origin of the harmonisations that were transmitted context-less in the Bach legacy). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:10, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You decide. I just think that Bach writing a chorale cantata on a hymn "magnifies" the hymn. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ps: I agree that for the four-part setting, it doesn't matter whether from chorale cantata, other church cantata, motet or Passion, - why single out the first in the lead, not mentioning the others? I bet more readers associate the Passions than any cantata. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:31, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the lead section, and even more so the History section, need a rewrite – feel free to proceed (alternatively, it would probably be more easy to proceed with these rewrites once the table is more or less complete). Also, the page would probably better be moved to List of four-part chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach, which reflects the common name for this genre (the only one that isn't four-part afaik, BWV 27/6 = BWV Anh. III 170, was not composed by Bach). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:56, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Re. "You decide" – nah, Wikipedia works by WP:CONSENSUS: this is as much my decision as anybody else's, including yours. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:05, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry that I simply said "you decide" instead of "if it was important to me and I'd believe it to be crucial for the understanding I'd do something about it, but as you carry the workload it may as well be as you like it" - which is more or less what you said also. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:35, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Re. "which is more or less what you said also" – no, not at all: quite the opposite in fact. I have been quite adamant in the past, as I am now, that "workload" and "decisions" are utterly unrelated in the Wikipedia system. Decisions are best rooted in applicable guidance (e.g. WP:COATRACK may be applicable to the idea of inserting too much chorale cantata content in a list that is basically not about chorale cantatas), most of which has been written by people not taking part in any way in the workload for expanding the list on this page. Also, the decisions we seem to agree upon (see above), are independent of who volunteers to implement them, thus taking the workload. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:57, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Deep links
Re "deep link not possible in this case: there are at least two sections in the article about this chorale)" (edit summary): what do you mean by "not possible"? A link to the more informative of these sections would improve understanding, especially for how Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein comes into play without question mark. Without a link, that needs an explanation or footnote. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * CPE Bach, in his 1786 publication, gives the title of the chorale as "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" (No. 253, see 5th column), so no, this name of the chorale does not need a question mark. Besides, "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" is also the name used for the alphabetical collation in the 389 chorales set published by Richter (and later Kalmus), see – the pages on that website can be used for filling in the numbers in the "389" column for the chorales in the BWV 1–249 range. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:46, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Duplicate numbering in Rie. & CPE
The number "43" figures twice in the columns CPE and Rie., once for "Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben (v. 5)" and once for "Wir Christenleut habn jetzund Freud (v. 3)". Judging from "371 Vierstimmige Choräle", the former is correct. In that case, number 379 of the 389 chorales, "Wir Christenleut'", would be missing a concordance in CPE and Rie. Anyone knowledgeable for this issue? Johentsch (talk) 07:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * fixed. no. 379 of the 389 Choralgesänge was wrongly attributed to CPE and Rie. no. 43. I found the correct concordance (CPE 320 and Rie. 321) and, indeed, these numbers were missing from the respective columns. Johentsch (talk) 08:15, 1 May 2023 (UTC)