All music documents used in this project were obtained online.

Schemellis Gesangbuch

We require a faithful edition of the items BWV 439–507 of Schemellis Gesangbuch in order to transfer the notes and lyrics of the songs to the computer.

Cover page of the first print edition

A scan of the first print edition from the year 1736 is not available. Only few manuscripts exist as facsimile online. One beautiful example is:

Komm, süsser Tod, komm, sel'ge Ruh!, BWV 478

The earliest edition of the scores BWV 439–507 that we could find is from the year 1893:

Lieder und Arien aus Schemelli's Gesangbuch und aus dem Notenbuch der Anna Magdalena Bach
Editor: Franz Wüllner (1832–1902)
Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Band 39
Breitkopf & Härtel, 1893. Plate B.W. XXXIX.

The book is available as scan from IMSLP Petrucci Music Library. Here is a screenshot from the pdf:

Seelenweide, meine Freude, BWV 497

We digitize the scores in the book adhering to the following policies:

• the general bass notation is waived;
• repetitions :| are omitted (because their lack of support by The Pirate Fugues software)
• the soprano clef is substituted by the treble clef;
• the lyrics are quoted verbatim, i.e. without modernization. However, there is no guarantee that the spelling from the 1893 edition corresponds to the original orthography used around 1736.

The complete verses of each aria are listed on Bernd Kolbs page for BWV 439–500, and 501–507.

Other transcriptions

Occasionally, we had a glance at other transcriptions in order to settle questions of the following nature: should there be a major, or minor chord? During the undertaking of the project, we came across the following works:

Notable singletons

• BWV 444 is performed here with cembalo accompaniment followed by BWV 476
• BWV 447 was harmonized by J.S. Bach as the choral Die Sonn' hat sich mit ihrem Glanz gewendet, BWV 297. Here is an recording of a choir.
• BWV 466 for piano by Erkki Melartin, available from IMSLP
• BWV 469 is considered a Christmas song nowadays. Here is an arrangement for choir.
• BWV 478 for orchestra by Stokowski
• BWV 487 for orchestra by Eteri Andjaparidze

Complete collections

• Für eine Singstimme mit Klavier (Orgel oder Harmonium), Edition Peters, Ed.3392b, 1920. Plate 10228
• Edition by Thomas A. Schneider, who divides a subset of the collection into four theme groups of 12 songs each:
  • für allgemeine Anlässe:
    BWV 443, 445, 452, 456, 512, 462, 472, 466, 467, 481, 503, 517
  • für die Tageszeiten und andere Anlässe:
    BWV 451, 446, 447, 448, 459, 461, 463, 513, 498, 506, 516, 505
  • für Ostern und andere Feste:
    BWV 480, 475, 441, 442, 497, 479, 453, 473, 470, 504, 494, 514
  • für Sterben, Tod, Auferstehung, ewiges Leben:
    BWV 439, 449, 457, 464, 468, 477, 478, 483, 488, 492, 495, 502

Both editions are also available from IMSLP. We found that several of the scores differ from our reference edition in the following way:

• parts of the bass line are transposed by one octave;
• single notes in the bass voice have altered accidentals;
• spelling of lyrics.