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

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 Course provides a thorough re-appraisal of this inspiring music. Each Chapter builds on the work of previous ones, so that the student is taken from the simplest harmonisations of single phrases right through to the most complex settings of complete chorale melodies employing the full range of Bach's harmonic resources. All the exercises are based directly on Bach's own music. The two final Chapters take the most advanced student into more specialised areas of four-part harmony.