List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale harmonisations, alternatively named four-part chorales, are Lutheran hymn settings that characteristically conform to the following:

In Bach's extant autographs such chorale harmonisations are usually part of a larger vocal work, most typically one of his chorale cantatas, or at least part of a set or collection such as D-B Mus. ms. Bach St 123, a set of three wedding chorales. Most autographs also show a colla parte instrumentation and/or a figured bass accompaniment for Bach's chorale settings.

Yet Chapter 5 of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis and Series F of the Bach Compendium list around two hundred of these chorale harmonisations as separate compositions without apparent instrumental accompaniment. This results from the history of these chorale settings between their composition in the first half of the 18th century and the publication of most of them in the second half of that century.

Apart from the four-part homophonic SATB chorus settings, Bach's Lutheran hymn harmonisations also appear as:

The compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach that had been printed during his lifetime were nearly exclusively instrumental works. Moreover, by the time Bach died in 1750 it was forgotten that a few of his vocal works (BWV 71, BWV 439–507,...) had indeed been printed in the first half of the 18th century. In the period between the publication of The Art of Fugue in the early 1750s, and the publication of further works from 1900, only one group of Bach's works was published: his four-part chorales.

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