Bach Chorales in Open Score

After spending July in Paris studying music composition at the European American Music Alliance, I found myself wanting to continue my musicianship studies back home. Clef reading is one of the skills emphasized, as is a deep understanding of Bach’s harmonization. Reading and singing Bach chorales in open score is a great way to practice both skills.

There are published versions of the chorales in open score available, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music has free open score versions of just about every chorale Bach wrote. But the latter is a bit inconvenient (since each chorale is its own link) and the notation is a little stiff. And the former costs money.

So I’ve gone about notating all the chorales in open score with a layout more amenable to printing and free to download. I’m presenting them in the same order as the fairly ubiquitous Kalmus 389 Chorales publication (K 06002). It takes a bit more time to lay these out than I expected, so I’m starting with the first 25 and will add more as time permits.

Bach Chorales in open score (1-25)