The autograph manuscript of the Great Eighteen, currently preserved as P 271 in the Berlin State Library, documents that Bach began to prepare the collection around 1740, after having completed Part III of the Clavier-Übung in 1739. When Bach moved to his later positions as Kapellmeister in Köthen in 1717 and cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723, his obligations did not specifically include compositions for the organ. It is probable that the longer chorale preludes composed then served some ceremonial function during the services in the court chapel, such as accompanying communion.
Here he also wrote most of his organ works." During Bach's time at Weimar, the chapel organ there was extensively improved and enlarged occupying a loft at the east end of the chapel just below the roof, it had two manual keyboards, a pedalboard and about a dozen stops, including at Bach's request a row of tuned bells. As his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach mentions in his obituary or nekrolog: "His grace's delight in his playing fired him to attempt everything possible in the art of how to treat the organ.
Īs a result of encouragement from the Duke, a devout Lutheran and music lover, Bach developed secular and liturgical organ works in all forms, in what was to be his most productive period for organ composition. The organ loft is visible at the top of the picture.Įarly versions of almost all the chorale preludes are thought to date back to 1710–1714, during the period 1708–1717 when Bach served as court organist and Konzertmeister (director of music) in Weimar, at the court of Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
The court chapel at the Schloss in Weimar where Bach was court organist.
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