Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis ("Bach Works Catalogue") is the numbering system used to identify musical works by Johann Sebastian Bach. The BWV numbers were assigned by Wolfgang Schmieder in 1950, indicating the placement in the catalogue of Bach's works entitled Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach. The BWV numbers are universally used and accepted as the standard way of numbering the works of Bach, for example: "Mass in B minor, BWV 232, composed in 1733". At times the BWV numbers are called Schmieder numbers. The terms are interchangeable: in some (mostly older) publications indications like S. 232 for the work mentioned in the example above can be found. Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikisource, as part of the 1911 Encyclopedia Wikiproject, has original text related to this article: Music Meta has a page about this at: Music markup MusicNovatory: the science of music encyclopedia The... The 1748 Haussmann portrait of the composer. ... Wolfgang Schmieder (1901–1990) was a German musicologist who, in 1950, published the BWV, or Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue), a catalog of musical works by Johann Sebastian Bach. ... 1950 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) is a a musical setting of the Latin Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach. ... Events February 12 - British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia. ...

For a list of Bach's works arranged by BWV number, see list of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach. This article contains passages or phrases in German that are in need of copyediting. ...

Schmieder's catalogue was updated several times, e.g. removing uncertain works to the "annexes", adding newly discovered works, etc... These updated versions generally appear in print: the 1990 edition appeared as ISBN 3-7651-0255-5 This article is about the year. ...

A thematical catalogue

Unlike chronologically arranged catalogues for other classical composers, Schmieder's catalogue of Bach's works is arranged by type of work, which is called a thematical catalogue: choral works come first, then works for organ, then other keyboard works, and so on. For this reason, a low BWV number does not necessarily indicate an early work.

Why Schmieder chose this thematical arrangement instead of a chronological is due to several reasons, of which probably the two most important were:

• Many of Bach's works have an uncertain composition date. Even if a date is written on the score, this can mean no more than the date it was copied, re-arranged, etc... Nonetheless, since Schmieder's original publication of the BWV catalogue, scholars have established many more "probable" and "certain" composition dates than was imaginable in the 1950s (see below).
• The Bach Gesellschaft had been publishing Bach's works since 1851; these existing publications had grouped Bach's works by genre (or musical form), so listing according to this established practice was less confusing.

The Bach-Gesellschaft was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. ... A genre is a division of a particular form of art according to criteria particular to that form. ... The term musical form is used in two related ways: a generic type of composition such as the symphony or concerto the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole; this too can be generic, such as binary form or sonata form Musical...

Other cataloguing systems for Bach's compositions

Opus number - publication date

Ordering the complete list of Bach's compositions by Opus number or by publication date were both out of the question: Bach didn't use "Opus" numbers, and only very few of his works had been published during his lifetime. Opus is a Latin word which means work (in the sense of a work of art). Some composers musical pieces are identified by opus numbers which generally run either in order of composition or in order of publication. ... To publish is to make publicly known, and in reference to text and images, it can mean distributing paper copies to the public, or putting the content on a website. ...

See also: Bach compositions printed during the composer's lifetime See List of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach for the complete list of Bach compositions - the present list only lists those compositions by Bach that were printed during his lifetime: since some of these editions got a bit scattered over the BWV catalogue, this list is only intended to provide...

Chronological

Philippe (and Gérard) Zwang published an alternate system for numbering the cantatas (BWV 1-215 + 248-249), taking a chronology in account, see: http://infopuq.uquebec.ca/~uss1010/catal/bacjs/corrbwvz.html

This list was published in 1982 as Guide pratique des cantates de Bach in Paris, ISBN 2-221-00749-2

External links

• BWV-catalogue in bachcentral.com
• BWV-catalogue in infopuq.uquebec.ca