How I Study Bach Chorales 

Take the last bit about "text" with a grain of salt. The original German doesn't translate exactly as outlined by the editors, but my general point about Bach's "subversion" regarding the use of minor chords is still valid (at least in my opinion). Let me know what you liked/didn't like about the format of this new video. I'm putting it in a new playlist creatively entitled "Score Study with Saad" which right now includes my Gloria Coates Symphony No. 4 analysis and this Bach chorale. P.S. if you are a native German speaker please don’t hesitate to point out inaccuracies and I’ll make those corrections in the description.

Hello from Bach's city, Leipzig/Germany, and hello from the University of Music and Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig (Germany's oldest music conservatory and the second oldest in Europe after the Paris conservatory), where---being a composer and music theorist myself---I'm teaching music theory and ear training. Thanks for your interesting video on Bach's chorales. It's interesting to me and joyful to see that a contemporary American composer with roots in the middle east is still interested in what studying Bach's chorales could teach you. His choral settings are souch gems and always full with surprising and astonishing details from which there is a ton to learn about counterpoint, harmony, musical interpretation of the words in the text. Some commentators have already pointed out that the melody itself is not from Bach himself (that is the case in the least of his chorales), but he changes the original melodies most of the times like he does here to accomodate them to his purposes. The original melodies mostly stem from the period of the reformation (around 1520-1570) and are not in a modern major or minor key but modal (like this melody, which is Dorian). Bach's musical language isn't modal any more (at least not in the historic way from the Renaissance era), and so it's always interesting to see how he changes the old melodies to be some sort of hybrid between old modality and modern (baroque) majos/minor tonality. Of course, the main overall shape of the melody stays more or less the same, because the chorale serves the purpose of inviting the congregation to sing along with the choir in a cantata or oratorio, using the well known Lutheran hymns. Let me say something about the text: You already mentioned that, of course, Bach didn't put the English translation to music but the original German text by Luther. But your observations were not too far away, because something like the e-minor chord in root position to the English word 'hope' falls on the German word 'Freud' (joy) in the original text (Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin---literal translation: With peace and joy I pass away [i.e. I die]). It's Luther's song version of the biblical Canticum Simeonis, Simeon's praising song. Simeon was a very old man who saw the little Jesus boy in the temple in Jerusalem and thus, knowing and believing that this little Jesus child would turn out to be the saviour of the world, was able to let go of his old, dreary and heavy burdened life and die in rest and peace, because now that he has seen the savior all of his burdens are taken away. That's waht the chorale is all about. In my opinion it's one of the most beautiful chorales by Martin Luther, you definitely should seak out the original version of it and maybe some of the settings of this hymn by composers from Luther's time (Johann Walter, Ludwig Senfl, Caspar Othmayer...) to get an idea of the original modal quality of it, compared to the baroquisized version by Bach. Back to this e-minor chord and Bach's setting of the first melody phrase: Considering that it's a d-Dorian melody originally, the e minor chord per se is not that unusual in this key, but in Bach's more major/minor tonality it surely pops out, but not so much, as I would say, as a dark minor chord, because in the modern key of d minor (instead of d Dorian) you just wouldn't have a regular minor chord on the second scale degree to your disposal, because of the b flat. So the Dorian e minor chord is already a somewhat uplifting, bright color in a regular minor tonality. And this bright, uplifting color is what strikes me the most in this first phrase. And---as you've showed wonderfully and rightly so in your video---everything in Bach's setting of this first phrase is going upward, is drawn into the heights. And, of course, that is what happens to Simeon: His spirit is lifted up, enlightened, freed from every weight and burden that pulls him down, his soul is ready to 'take off and fly'. It is interesting that even you use an edition with English translations one still is drawn to to conclusion that Bach put all his conscience and efforts in interpreting the text of the chorale by means of his composition and not only would write some random setting of the melody that just sounded beautiful. He wanted the music to be able to express the theological content of the text, and that's the case with almost every single one of his chorale settings. It's mindblowing!

This is gold!!!!! Thanks!!!!

Great video, thank you very much!

You deserve way more subscribers. This was excellent

Great work

Thanks Saad, very helpful.

It’s interesting the fact that we study Contrapuctus Severo in school with all the rules in Fux style at least me that I studied Dubious method but all this corals broke many rules of what is supposed to be correct. Perhaps we should study more this kind of works,of course depends the differences between music theory programs around the world I find inspiration from Rach and Tschaikovsky too

Really helpful video! Could you please analyze Rachmaninoff's second symphony next? It's such an amazing piece!

Be honest: how disappointed in us are you that this video has 1,300 views but the linked performance of the chorale only has about 300? Who among us didn't do the homework???

Id recommend for sure doing a Roman numeral analysis , and then improvise over the chords.

Very interesting video. I do believe, however, that this is a Bach Chorale only in the sense that Bach harmonized it, and used it in some of his cantatas. The melody line was written by Martin Luther, and the text was also written by Martin Luther from Simeon's Prayer, Nunc Dimittis in Latin. See the famous Bach Cantatas website maintained by Aryeh Oron, which has details of all the chorales Bach used. And the English wording of the verse shown in the score on the video is the fourth verse of this chorale.

Great video! I agree about not doing excessive Roman Numeral analysis. I'm only just learning how to study these chorales which is why I'm here, and having come from a more pop/jazz background it had been tempting to mark up every beat with chords and roman numeral analysis. I learned a few things here and there, but mostly I found it rather confusing because of the density of harmonic rhythm changes, contrapuntal voice movement, and frequent chromaticism, relative maj/min keys, and full modulations. I found I would spend a lot more time sweating over which number to call something which leaves the presumed key, to the point I was enjoying the process less and walking away not having learned much at all. More recently I have tried a different and more zoomed-out global approach, I think similar to what you are doing here, which is to ask myself the bigger questions about the structure and what is going on, what is the story Bach is telling? I will play it first at the piano (which is great for sight-reading!) and I am trying to sing each line separately which is hard but I think worth it, because it also gives me a greater sense and appreciation of how these chorales would've been performed. Then I will do a general strucutral highlight of phrasings, patterns, and note the type of cadences. I will also write more generally the functional harmony rather than the specific roman numberals on every. single. beat. I am discovering this is a better way to think about it, to view chords (whether diatonic or chromatic) by their function in creating movement and telling a story. For example the V7 and viiº chords both serve a dominant function (or of course secondary dominants in many cases to point elsewhere), and I am discovering when you understand the cadences as well as contrapuntal voice leading, it's mentally simpler to look at it from the lens of their function knowing that most likely the exact chords chosen had more to do with smooth voice leading and creating good melodic lines. Plus Bach and many of his contemporaries didn't really sit around thinking about chords in the way we do. So for this reason I don't find the ultra-granular approach of roman numerals on every beat to be terribly helpful - more confusing than anything when you take a step back. I will still use them sometimes on specific downbeats, cadences, and to take note of secondary dominants like V/V. Finally I will highlight and circle anything I find particularly interesting or unusual. Not sure if I'm doing any of this right as I'm entirely self-taught and still have much to learn on my journey into the Chorales, but music should be played and enjoyed and I feel like over roman-numeral-analyzing everything makes me forget why I'm doing this in the first place! ;)

It seems to me like the piece is in A minor from the beginning and just starts on the IV, because there is no B flat... however the V chord (E) is minor, which gives a modal Aeolian sound.. Weird and interesting!

I saw your video with your coral in master portafolio,will be great if you make a video describing more the Harmonical and Contrapuct approach you took… It was a functional harmony? When I try to write chorals its difficult to me find balance between rules and find my own voice…

Direct fifth in the outer voices at 8:30. I know it's concealed by the upper step, but how often are we more free to do that? Isn't the "ultima" direct motion inevitable while we'd look to avoid in the "penúltima"

You might confuse people by calling it "his melody". The parallels in the first cadence are what striked me most.

Great video! Just one thing concerning the text: Bach had the German text in mind when it comes to a relation between music and text. The English translation is not really literal. Actually, it differs a lot from the orignal (Mit Fried und Freud fahr ich dahin...).

more please 🫶

Dude, same.

Hey Saad. Are you able to look at these chorales and hear them in your head? Just wondering because I’ve been learning music notation and sometimes I can’t always hear the chorales perfectly in my head first read

I am not a musicologist But on the point of using a minor, ( rather than major), chord; is there not a psychological link between MAJOR = objective expression; versus MINOR = subjective, personal, inner expression & feeling ??

Great. But what is it with the constant 1. Prelude? I mean, it's a lecture not a commercial. I personally am very much distracted by this. What is the idea? Is this supposed to create a nice background atmosphere? Is it a generational thing? I'm 50....

3:48 sounds very dorian 🧐