Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale: Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the themes in the Finale of Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony) Such tune with a harmonic accompaniment (e.g. chorale monody, chorales included in Schemellis Gesangbuch) Such a tune presented in a homophonic or homorhythmic harmonisation, usually four-part harmony (e.g. Bach's four-part chorales, or the chorale included in the second movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony) A more complex setting of a hymn(-like) tune (e.g. chorale fantasia form in Bach's Schübler Chorales, or a combination of compositional techniques in César Franck's )
The chorale originated when Martin Luther translated sacred songs into the vernacular language (German), contrary to the established practice of church music near the end of the first quarter of the 16th century. The first hymnals according to Luther's new method were published in 1524. Luther and his followers not only wrote metrical hymn lyrics, but also composed metrical musical settings for these texts. This music was partially based on established melodies of church hymns and known secular songs. In the 17th century the repertoire was enriched with more choral and organ settings of the chorale tunes. By the end of the century a four-part setting for SATB voices had become the standard for the choral settings, while the congregational singing of chorales was tending towards monody with an instrumental accompaniment. The prolific creation of new Lutheran chorale tunes ended around that time.
The cantata genre, originally consisting only of recitatives and arias, was introduced into Lutheran church services in the early 18th century. The format was soon expanded with choral movements in the form of four-part chorales. Composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel often placed these chorales as the concluding movement of their church compositions. The chorale finale was emulated in more secular genres such as Romantic 19th-century symphonies. Other composers of that era, such as Franck, expanded the repertoire of the organ chorale, also emulating what late Baroque composers such as Bach had produced more than a century before. Entirely new chorale compositions became rare after the Romantic era, but by that time the four-part harmonization technique, as exemplified in four-part chorales, had become part of the canon of Western music.
History
In German, the word may as well refer to Protestant congregational singing as to other forms of vocal (church) music, including Gregorian chant. The English word which derived from this German term, that is chorale, however almost exclusively refers to the musical forms that originated in the German Reformation.
16th century
17th century
The bulk of Lutheran hymn texts and chorale melodies was created before the end of the 17th century.
Johann Pachelbel's Erster Theil etlicher Choräle, a set of organ chorales, was published in the last decade of the 17th century. Johann Sebastian Bach's earliest extant compositions, works for organ which he possibly wrote before his fifteenth birthday, include the chorales BWV 700, 724, 1091, 1094, 1097, 1112, 1113 and 1119.
18th century
In the early 18th century Erdmann Neumeister introduced the cantata format, originally consisting exclusively of recitatives and arias, in Lutheran liturgical music. Within a few years, the format was combined with other pre-existing liturgical formats such as the chorale concerto, resulting in church cantatas that consisted of free poetry, for instance used in recitatives and arias, dicta and/or hymn-based movements: the Sonntags- und Fest-Andachten cantata libretto cycle, published in Meiningen in 1704, contained such extended cantata texts. The chorale cantata, called per omnes versus (through all verses) when its libretto was an entire unmodified Lutheran hymn, was also a format modernised from earlier types. Dieterich Buxtehude composed six per omnes versus chorale settings. BWV 4, an early Bach-cantata composed in 1707, is in this same format. Later, for his 1720s second cantata cycle, Bach developed a chorale cantata format where the inner movements paraphrased (rather than quoted) text of the inner verses of the hymn on which the cantata was based.