Bach's Authentic Chorale Harmony - Resources: A Progressive Guide to his Principles and Practices

by Christopher Mabley

Overview

Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale settings have been vital to the teaching of music ever since they were composed. His four-voiced harmonisations represent a Baroque composer's approach to melodies that are often centuries older. As musical styles continued to evolve, each succeeding generation of teachers and students brought their own viewpoint to bear on this small corpus of music. Consequently, during the three centuries since their composition and a quarter of a millennium since their first publication, a range of contrasting ideas and approaches has tended to obscure the fundamental nature of these short yet complex musical works. This volume of Resources presents a comprehensive selection of individual phrases and whole chorales in Bach's harmonisations, together with some alternative settings for comparison. They have been sorted into five principal types and arranged in an increasing order of complexity. Every phrase has been meticulously checked for accuracy against its original version in the cantatas and Passions. This collection complements any course on chorale harmonisation - in particular, it provides authentic solutions to the exercises set in the accompanying Workbook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910864517
Publisher:	Choir Press
Publication date:	05/06/2016
Series:	Bach's Authentic Chorale Harmony , #2
Edition description:	Resources ed.
Pages:	104
Product dimensions:	8.27(w) x 11.69(h) x 0.28(d)

About the Author

Christopher Mabley is a teacher, conductor, composer, arranger, performer, writer and examiner. He studied Music at the University of Cambridge, and subsequently took a Master's degree in the Theory and Analysis of Music at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has taught Bach's chorale harmony to students of all abilities since 1984. Inspired at the turn of the millennium to make his own investigations into the musical language of Bach's fourvoiced chorale harmonisations, fourteen years later he completed this Course, marking the tercentenary of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Just as Emanuel had been concerned to ensure the accuracy of the original publications of this music, so Christopher has been concerned to ensure that the manner of their harmonisation is understood on its own terms rather than from opposing perspectives. Students over many generations have benefited from his evolving ideas, and this Course represents the culmination of his research; its publication marks 250 years since Bach's four-voiced chorale harmonisations first appeared in print in 1765.

Table of Contents

General Introduction: J. S. Bach’s Four-voiced Chorale Harmonisations. Part I: The principles of his style 1. Chapter 1: These musical examples are presented in the Workbook. Chapter 2: Phrases which close with a Perfect Cadence 2. Chapter 3: Phrases which close with an Imperfect Cadence. Part II: Cadential suspensions. Chapter 4: The ‘IIb –Va–Ia’ Perfect Cadence. Chapter 5: The ‘4 –3’ Perfect Cadence. Chapter 6:The ‘Ic –Va–Ia’ Perfect Cadence. Part III: Further elaborations of his style. Chapter 7: Suspensions in the melody and in the bass line. Chapter 8: These musical examples are presented in the Workbook. Chapter 9: Harmonising a full chorale. Part IV: Modulations. Chapter 10: Modulation to and from the Dominant key. Chapter 11: Modulation to and from the Relative Major key. Chapter 12: Modulation to and from two related keys and varied harmonisations of the same melody. Part V: Extensions. Chapter 13 Harmonising modal melodies. Chapter 14: Developing an instrumental style of harmonisation.