In this update, we take a short break from 19th-century opera to share works by members of the Bach family: Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 538 (“Dorian”), the 15 Inventions BWV 772-786 for keyboard, teaching pieces first set down in the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and the Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019. Rounding out the list is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Psalmen mit Melodien, Wq 196, a collection of 42 psalms with texts translated by Johann Andreas Cramer, published by the composer and printed by Breitkopf in 1774.1
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, “Der Erste Psalm,” Psalmen mit Melodien. Merritt Room Mus 627.2.584 (click to enlarge)
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750
- [Toccata und Fuge, organ, BWV 538, D minor]
Toccata et fugue pour l’orgue ou le piano-forte. No. II / composée par J.S. Bach. First ed. Leipzig : Au bureau de musique de C.F. Peters, [ca. 1829]. Merritt Room Mus 627.1.456.5 - [Inventions, harpsichord, BWV 772-786]
XV inventions pour le clavecin / composées par Mr. J.S. Bach. Nouvelle edition. À Leipsic : Au Bureau de Musique. de C.F. Peters., [ca. 1820?]. Merritt Room Mus 627.1.435.31
Plates of the original [1801] Hoffmeister ed. were used for this revised edition. - [Sonatas, violin, harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019]
Clavier Sonaten mit obligater Violine / von Johann Sebastian Bach. Zürich : Bëy Hans Gëorg Nägeli., [1804?]. Merritt Room Mus 627.1.283.4. RISM A/I, B 454
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, 1714-1788
- [Psalmen mit Melodien]
Herrn Doctor Cramers übersetzte Psalmen mit Melodien : zum singen bey dem Claviere / von Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Leipzig : Im Verlage des Autors, 1774. Merritt Room Mus 627.2.584. RISM A/I, B 0131
Find these and nearly 100 other works by members of the Bach family – including a set of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach copyists’ manuscripts – online in our collection of Digital Scores and Libretti.
-Kerry Masteller
1. For more about this collection, see Anja Morgenstern, introduction to Cramer and Sturm Songs, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, The Complete Works VI/2 (Los Altos, Calif: Packard Humanities Institute, 2009), http://www.cpebach.org/toc/toc-VI-2.html.