List of compositions by J.S. Bach printed during his lifetime

Since the publication of the BWV catalogue in 1950 lists of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach are often ordered by BWV number. That ordering says however little about chronology of composition, and even less about chronology of publication. Historians did however study which works the composer selected for print, and when and how they were published.

In Bach's time, compositions could circulate in manuscript and be copied by hand, which sometimes amounted to publication, for example the Well-Tempered Clavier was considered "published" in this fashion years before it was printed the first time (all long before copyright even existed).

The scores of more extended vocal and orchestral works were less often published in print in Bach's time. Such scores were generally intended for local use, and the expenses for printing all the parts were high. However, text-books of the special Easter and Christmas services, celebrated in the churches for which Bach composed music in Leipzig, were regularly printed (e.g., Music for Easter, 1731; Christmas Oratorio, 1734; etc.), and texts for the Passions and many cantatas were for instance included in Picander's volumes of Ernst-Schertzhaffte und Satyrische Gedichte. These publications did however contain little indications about the music.

The parts of the cantata Gott ist mein König, BWV 71 were printed in Mühlhausen in 1708. Records suggest that Mühlhausen council may also have paid for the printing of a later cantata, known as BWV Anh. 192, but, if so, it is now lost.

For harpsichord, published in installments from 1726 to 1730: Six Partitas, BWV 825–830:

In 1731 these partitas were collectively published as Clavier-Übung ("Keyboard Exercise").

Canon for four voices, BWV 1074, first published in Georg Philipp Telemann's Der getreue Music-Meister in 1728. The same canon was published two more times during Bach's lifetime: with two solutions in Johann Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister in 1739, and with three solutions in Volume 3 of Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Neu eröffnete musikalische Bibliothek in 1747.

...
Wikipedia