J.S. Bach didn’t write the Bach chorales. Well, not by himself. Chorales are Lutheran hymn tunes, and the “Bach chorales” are harmonizations and arrangements of them. There are hundreds. As a church musician at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig from 1723 until his death in 1750, Bach was required to provide new compositions every Sunday. The repertoire of pre-composed chorale tunes came in very handy.
As was typical of Bach, he turned the ordinary into the amazing. Even his simplest four-part harmony settings of the chorales stand as the final word in their respective arrangements. Bach also included chorale settings in his cantatas, weekly works for choir, vocal soloists and instruments written for specific liturgical purposes.
