Do you have a favourite Bach chorale? Let me know below!

Babe, wake up. Sam dropped a new analysis video!

This has come to me at an auspicious time on my musical journey. Literally yesterday I thought to myself: "I'd really love to learn how to study Bach's chorales"! As an entirely self-taught composer, a couple years ago I had this medicore eBook on composition, where the first chapter teaches first species counterpoint (in 2 voices) with very little foreground on intervals and dissonance control. At the end of this first chapter, the author provided 50 Bach Chorales with a simple instruction to analyze them, nothing more. Having done only first species counterpoint, I felt so underprepared to understand the task. It's like if I went to undergrad med school for a semester and then I get pushed into the ER and asked to do brain surgery! Since I did have decent background in playing jazz piano and doing harmonic analysis, I was capable of doing a chord analysis as well as roman numerals. However after only a few chorales I felt so lost and it was taking absolutely forever, because Bach's frequent use of chromaticism as well as fast moving harmonic parts made roman numeral analysis almost pointless. I could understand the gist of the chords Bach is using, but I couldn't understand what the individual voices were doing and more importantly: the why behind the harmonic motion. I could see if we were on a I or V chord, but I couldn't really understood how we got there. Fortunately, I have since then gotten a very good college level textbook and took some lessons with a compoisition teacher, and learned everything from the ground up, all the way up through fifth species counterpoint in 4 voices as well as an intro to SATB writing in chorale and keyboard style. Now, armed with this knowledge, it's so much easier for me to tackle these Chorales, which has also provided me more of a historical understanding of how composers during the Baroque period would have viewed and used intervals. Watching this video I actually generally understood what's going on - although this sure is one of the more complex Chorales as you said. But I can at least look at it through an analytic lens powered by knowledge of counterpoint and voice leading in a way I didn't before. This isn't to say that anyone who hasn't done extensive background first shouldn't look at the Chorales - but it felt necessary for me and the way my brain works! I now look forward to diving into his chorales further and your future videos on the topic. Thank you!

Already loving the series

You have broadened my musical horizon many times. As a hobbyist, these videos are the most interesting to me. Thank you for making these!

Your playing of the choral is wonderful!

Your voice is fine. Don’t apologize.

My EKD Evangelischegesangbuch has this as #99. The melody is attributed to Salzburg circa 1160. It doesn't have 8th notes, but only quarter notes. It has a Gregorian feel to it. I loved this from the beginning. The Kyrie is standard liturgy practice.

So hyped for this!

Im glad that the analysis videos are back again!!

Thank you Samuel

I studied these as well throughout my collegiate studies. Much to learn from these.

I bought this book recently, thanks for the heads up.

Golly Samuel, perfect timing! I do really appreciate all your work on this channel. Thank you!

I already know this will be a video I return to many times. thanks for sharing your expertise so generously.

great video!

Muito bom. Obrigado.

Excellent! You are so spot on about how these chorales are presented to first year music students (in the U.S. at least) seemingly for the sake of learning abstract "rules" about parallel fifths and octaves etc. but they leave those classes with very little sense of the chorales as expressive compositions in themselves.

Great video, I always found that hymns written by anyone but Bach just pale in comparison. I also like that you always consider the context of the music. A lot of composers kindof idolize music as a pure art and emphasize its abstractness, but I like that you appreciate Bach's techniques that would make his music accessible to his congregation. I also like that you point out the importance of the text in choral music, perhaps in future videos you could use your poetry expertise to analyze more of the connections between the music and the poem.

Great video

I love seeing how these videos have evolved since 2019.

Great video, but just as a note, I find the upper profile camera, and the frequent switching to it, annoying, because I would feel awkward if I were in that position in real life. I'd prefer just a frontal view, like a normal conversation.

5:01 Correction: "Christ will unser Trost sein" should be translated as "Christ will be our consolation" or "Christ shall be our consolation". Historically, "will" used to function as a modal verb like in modern English. Nowadays it simply means "to will" in the sense of "to want, to desire".

I've recently found your channel and love your videos! I was under the impression that the written fermatas were intended to express the end of a phrase and not to extend the duration of a note, as we use fermatas today. Please explain so I can better understand.

thanks

I quite like Henrik Ødegaard's choir piece on the Danish version of the traditional melody (Krist Stod Opp Av Døde). He starts from similar observations about lyrics and melody (passion theme, variations in length) and maybe even wants to produce a similar effect in his audience as Bach, but the pieces are obviously very different

Good video. These chorales are indeed very intresting to study. I think my favorite ones in terms of complexity are "Wir glauben all an einen Gott" and "Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit", although there are of course many others. Maybe a couple of things that would be interesting to me as a viewer: A lot of chorales have more than one version in this book in some cases even ten or so. It is interesting looking what type of choices Bach makes depending on the circumstance. Also there are certainly a lot of chorales that have been adapted by composers before and also composers in Bachs era. Its nice to see the influence that other composers had on Bach and how he managed to merge them into his own style. And thirdly i think it's important to see these chorales in context to his adaptions in the cantatas and the organ works. The Clavierübung 3 and the 18 Leipzig Chorales are just two works to name. Thank you for posting this video, looking forward to the next.

"You'll have to forgive me for my poor singing skills" says the guy who sang Pluto's Matches! (You knocked it outta the park on that whole album, imo)

Great analysis , can this be done with any Bach 4 Part chorales? I have a book with 371 of them but don't know how to use them to get better at composing. How can they help with learning composition?

beautiful video. does this have a bwv number ? i want to see if Geck covers this in his bio..

Hey Samuel, I have a question that I’m not sure you’ve covered in any previous videos. When you look at a piece of sheet music; for example this Bach chorale, a symphony score, or a piano sonata etc. Are you able to hear it in your head in real time as if it were being performed? I’m a newer composer and started learning to read sheet music a little over a year ago and I’m able to read somewhat advanced sheet music such as these chorales the early Beethoven sonatas, but looking at a super complex piano arrangement or symphony and trying to hear it in real time is a seemingly impossible feat. I’d love to hear your experience with this

Can I have a small suggestion? When you play those excerpts, i think it could be helpful for us beginners to see a cropped part of the score in question, as I have already kind of forgotten what the music looks like. It's probably a beginner problem but I find it hard to understand what's happening by just listening to the music alone.

Why does the video cut back and forth from two different angles at regular intervals? It is distracting.

Another good exercise would be to take e.g. Eleanor Rigby and to apply Bach's technique.

Jesu meine freude - a number of different harmonisations are interesting to compare.

My teacher has told me, when it comes to Baroque Music, Bass is boss, one has to harmonise the bassline not the upper voices. Moreover, Baroque composers worked horizontal, not vertical.

Why keep switching between one head shot and another head shot. It makes me dizzy.

Samuel, this may seem nit-picky, but your editing style where you begin a sentence with the front camera angle and end the sentence with the side camera angle quickly becomes very apparent and distracting- to me, at least. I would use the side angle sparingly, as a cutaway between separate takes of the front angle, or maybe for parenthetical comments. When editing dialogue, I usually make my cuts within the sentence, often within a word, preferably on stressed, plosive syllables.

This is why God created male and female: Four part harmony.

I think you'd look better in a japanese style salaryman suit rather than a thick bulky old fashioned one, just a thought.

May I offer a slight critique? It's obvious you've hired a director. There is nothing more obnoxious than looking at someone look off camera while talking to us. Please go back to simply talking to the camera.

You won't learn true counterpoint with those chorales. They are great for harmony, voice leading, training sight reading and singing. If you want to learn true counterpoint you must study his fugas and fantasias. That's where true counterpoint can be found.