[Music: O Holy Jesu how hast thou offended,]
harmonised for four voices, and accompanied by violins, flutes, oboes, violas and basses, in unison with the respective voices and figured bass organ part. This accompaniment is used for all the succeeding chorales, and we may remark that the melody is given to the two flutes and two oboes as well as the first violins, that it may be made prominent.
All the other chorales in this work, six in number, are thus arranged and accompanied. The well-known Phrygian melody
occurs no less than five times, sometimes harmonised in the Ionian, sometimes in the Phrygian mode, and he has arranged it in the latter mode as a very beautiful vorspiel for the organ (Peters 244, No. 27).
We may here remark that in playing the organ choral-vorspiele no notice is to be taken of the _fermata_, which are only used when the melodies are sung.[58]
Besides the choral-vorspiele, and the introduction of the melody in conjunction with a chorus, and the harmonisation in four parts, with orchestra doubling the voice parts, Bach makes many other uses of the chorale. In the _Christmas Oratorio_, for example, he combines it with recitative, the melody being freely accompanied by the orchestra, and interspersed with recitative passages of the nature of interludes between the lines. Or he harmonises it in four parts, with free orchestral interludes.
The above quoted melody appears in the _Christmas Oratorio_ with brilliant orchestral accompaniment and interludes, three trumpets, drums and two oboes being used besides the strings and organ.
Erk has collected 319 chorales in two volumes (Peters), extracted from the church cantatas, &c., and has given full particulars of the sources. Sometimes they are worked up as fugues. Thus, the tune composed by Kugelmann about 1540, and generally known in England as the “Old Hundredth,” appears in the cantata “Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende” in the following form, the voice parts being doubled by strings, cornet, two oboes, three trombones and organ.
The choral-vorspiele published in the Peters’ edition number about 143--besides several sets of partitas or variations on chorales, and many “Varianten,” or different workings of the same vorspiel.