In music, achorale prelude orchorale setting is a short liturgical composition fororgan using achorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the GermanBaroque era and reached its culmination in the works ofJ.S. Bach, who wrote 46 (with a 47thunfinished) examples of the form in hisOrgelbüchlein,[1] along with multiple other works of the type inother collections.
The precise liturgical function of a choraleprelude in the Baroque period is uncertain and is a subject of debate. One possibility is that they were used to introduce the hymn about to be sung by the congregation, usually in aProtestant, and originally in aLutheran, church. This assumption may be valid for the shorter chorale preludes (Bach's setting of 'Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731, for example), but many chorale preludes are very long. It could be the case that these were played during special services in churches or in cathedrals.
Chorale preludes are typicallypolyphonic settings, with a chorale tune, plainly audible and often ornamented, used as cantus firmus. Accompanying motifs are usually derived from contrapuntal manipulations of the chorale melody.
Notable composers of chorale preludes during the Baroque period includeDieterich Buxtehude,Johann Pachelbel andJohann Sebastian Bach. After this period, the form fell out of favour and virtually none were written by subsequent composers, such as Stamitz, J C Bach, Haydn and Mozart, until examples from the late 19th century, including works byJohannes Brahms andMax Reger.[2]
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Among the old masters who wrote chorale preludes isSamuel Scheidt.[3][4] HisTabulatura Nova, containing several such works, was published in 1624.[3][5]Sweelinck is also typical of the early Baroque period.
Chorale preludes also appear in the works ofDieterich Buxtehude andGeorg Böhm. Over 40 chorale preludes by Buxtehude have survived to this day.[6][7][verification needed]
Johann Pachelbel's compositions are another example of the form, with many of his chorale preludes elaborating upon Protestant chorale melodies.[8]
The best-known composer of chorale preludes isJohann Sebastian Bach.[9] His earliest extant compositions, works for organ which he possibly wrote before his fifteenth birthday, include the chorale preludesBWV 700,724,1091, 1094, 1097, 1112, 1113 and 1119.[10]
In Bach's earlyOrgelbüchlein (1708-1717), the chorale melody is usually in the upper part and the accompanying lower parts, while being highly elaborate in their harmonic and contrapuntal detail, the beginnings and endings of phrases generally coincide with those of the chorale. An example is "Jesu, meine Freude", where the chorale melody in the upper part is supported by a closely woven and harmonically subtle counterpoint in three parts:
Peter Williams (1972, p. 27) says of theOrgelbüchlein: “Each approach to Bach’s organ chorales – their beauty, their ‘symbolism’, their mastery- is rewarding.”[11] Williams continues (1972, p29) “One of the most remarkable features of most of the settings is that the accompaniment and the motifs from which it is composed are newly invented and are not related thematically to the melody.”
By contrast, in the prelude onWachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 645) from the set of sixSchübler Chorales, taken from earliercantata movements, the accompaniment is a free-flowing obbligato which both derives from the chorale melody, yet seems to float independently over it. "The achieving of a melody independent of the cantus firmus, though in principle it is familiar in obbligato arias, is here unusually complete."[12] Julian Mincham (2010) sees an asymmetry here that is possibly rooted in the chorale itself “with its slightly puzzling mixture of different phrase lengths”:[13]
Two melodic ideas from the chorale, labelled (a) and (b) above are embedded in theobbligato line:
Mincham says that while “theme and chorale are not designed to begin and end together… [they] fit together perfectly. Get to know the chorale and ritornello melodies well and the apparently effortless ways in which they inter-relate will become obvious. The important point is that they seem not to fit; but they do.”[13]
There are several examples of 19th- and 20th-century chorale preludes, such as theEleven Chorale Preludes byJohannes Brahms,César Franck,Max Reger's andSamuel Barber's.[14] Works such as these continue to be produced nowadays such asHelmut Walcha's four volumes[15] and the seven volumes ofFlor Peeters.[16]
Reger composed, among others,52 chorale preludes, Op. 67, Chorale Preludes for Organ,Op. 79b (1900–04) and 30 small chorale preludes,Op. 135a (1914).
