WWJD 1.2







WWJD I 1.2




But–you should see what Johann did!



7 thoughts on “WWJD 1.2

  1. Having the text being set to music might be handy, as I’ve seen composers use specific techniques to match the prose. For example using minor or diminished chords only where the text switches to talking about humans or sinners from more sublime topics. As to why I weakened the ending, that was mostly guesswork on “well, I don’t want a stock cadence, as the fermata in the middle is the important bit, so C is the top of the dominant seventh or also V-IV-I in reverse or also yay! tritone! so what goes well with C, oh E is serviceable (among other experiments that created too much texture or so forth).” Advantages and disadvantages of being self-taught.

    • Your point about the text is a good one, thrig. Albert Riemenschneider, who made the definitive modern edition of the 371 Chorales, emphasizes that some of Bach’s harmonizations are clearly driven by word setting criteria–I think he goes so far as to say that some are ‘incomprehensible’ without taking text into account.

      The rub, though, is that for many of the chorales–including, IIRC, this one–the original text has been lost.

      And I’m not worried about your ending. Bach wouldn’t have done (and didn’t do) it that way, but as I said, there was nothing saying you necessarily had to follow WWJD. It works on its own terms.

      By the way, I think you are, according to the terms of the original post, a prize-winner. How does a small credit at my sheet music store sound?

      • Okay, the original chorale was fairly easy to find in the book of 371, and it appears that someone had scribbled roman numerals all over it many moons ago, all of which I appear to have forgotten (except maybe that IV6 would be good to use somewhere in that first measure, except not where I put it).

        I now have a rendering of all three versions on a Baroque Plenum organ using Handel fork 422.5 (1740) tuning, along with Victor Ferdinand Bossart’s Modified meantone (1743/44, organ in Klosterkirche Muri) as the scala (centered on G5). Which sounds much more pleasant than equal temperament.

        More sheet music? Given that I’m not really studying the Bach I already have :/ I really need job with less hours for more time for music…

      • Um, have you posted any of those awesome realizations yet? I’ll put up a realization of the original when I do WWJD 1.3, but you can darn well bet it will be in plain old equal temperament.

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