The Neumeister Chorales by Linda Dzuris

"Organ Preludes Attributed to Bach Found At Yale"¹

When did this headline appear in the press? Would you guess that it happened in your lifetime? The discovery of previously unknown organ music by Johann Sebastian Bach was officially announced on December 19, 1984 in the New York Times.

Catalogued as LM4708 and entitled Chorale ohne Texte (Chorales without text), the manuscript's importance remained overlooked for many years. Bach lived from 1685-1750. Imagine finding something new after 200 years. Now realize that among the 82 chorales without text in the manuscript, over 30 were new organ pieces by Bach!

How did this treasure come to be buried in New Haven, Connecticut? The principal characters in this history are J.S. Bach, Johann Gottfried Neumeister, Christian Heinrich Rinck and Lowell Mason.² LM4708's journey is outlined below:

1705-1710: Bach composes chorales
1790's: Neumeister, organist in Freiberg, copies chorales
Collection passes to Rinck (1770-1846), organist at Darmstadt
1852: Mason purchases Rinck's library
1873: Manuscript left to Yale by Mason

What do we know of and from the music itself? The chorales are not lengthy, generally a page or two and 1 1/2 to 3 minutes in duration. Their authenticity is largely accepted due to Neumeister's accuracy in identifying the authors of other pieces in the collection. Neumeister seems to have begun organizing the chorales according to the church year. At one point, the collection becomes one of general chorales. Numerous chorales are based on themes of death and dying. As an assistant organist, Neumeister would have had frequent funeral services to play and would certainly have made use of those particular chorales.

Several scholars link the chorales to another collection, the Orgelbüchlein by J.S. Bach. Slightly varied, early versions of two works in the Orgelbüchlein are found in Neumeister's manuscript. Additionally, the Orgelbüchlein contains title entries that were not set to music. The majority of chorale titles in Neumeister's collection correspond to those listed and not set in the Orgelbüchlein.³

Questions surface regarding the chronology of the two collections. There are two logical arguments for dating the chorales in Neumeister's manuscript as pre-Orgelbüchlein. John David Peterson, coeditor of the Concordia edition of Bach's Orgelbüchlein, describes an "internal consistency" found in each prelude of the Orgelbüchlein and not in the chorales of the Neumeister Collection.⁴ Other scholars have noted the inconsistencies of the recently discovered pieces and have also attributed them to an early experimental phase of composition.

A more convincing argument comes from the musical notation itself. Bach converted to the practice of using naturals around 1715, approximately the time he began the pieces in the Orgelbüchlein.⁵ In the Neumeister Chorales, the flats are still canceled by the placement of a sharp.

Lastly, it is important to know how these earliest chorales are regarded by musicians today.

"...we discover a brilliant diversity and an exciting experimentation with different styles and forms...."--Hans Fagius (J.S. Bach, The Complete Organ Music, Volume 5, 1987)

"The chorale settings in the Neumeister Collection are remarkable for their variety and their richness."--John David Peterson (The American Organist, June, 1986)

"Already there is innovation. There is a degree of originality and sophistication that is really quite remarkable."--Christoph Wolff (Preface to Facsimile Edition, Neumeister Collection of Chorale Preludes, 1985)

"The stages in which the world's most gifted step beyond the confines of local art must always be of great interest and importance."--Peter Williams (Early Music, February, 1987)

1. Will Crutchfield, "Organ Preludes Attributed to Bach Found at Yale," The New York Times, Dec.19, 1984, p.C19.

2. John David Peterson, "Bach's Organ Chorales From The Neumeister Collection," The American Organist, June 1986, p.58.

3. Christoph Wolff, "Bach's Organ Music: Studies and Discoveries," The Musical Times, 1985, pp.149-152.

4. John David Peterson, "Bach's Organ Chorales From The Neumeister Collection," The American Organist, June 1986, p.58.

5. Christoph Wolff, "Bach's Organ Music: Studies and Discoveries," The Musical Times, 1985, p.151.