page_title: Organ Sonatas (Bach)
section_title: German-speaking countries
hierarchical_section_title: Organ Sonatas (Bach) / Reception and legacy / German-speaking countries
caption_attribution_description: English: The portrait of baron Gottried van Swieten
context_page_description: The organ sonatas, BWV 525–530 by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six sonatas in trio sonata form. Each of the sonatas has three movements, with three independent parts in the two manuals and obbligato pedal. The collection was put together in Leipzig in the late 1720s and contained reworkings of prior compositions by Bach from earlier cantatas, organ works and chamber music as well as some newly composed movements. The sixth sonata, BWV 530, is the only one for which all three movements were specially composed for the collection. When played on an organ, the second manual part is often played an octave lower on the keyboard with appropriate registration. Commentators have suggested that the collection might partly have been intended for private study to perfect organ technique, some pointing out that its compass allows it to be played on a pedal clavichord. The collection of sonatas is generally regarded as one of Bach's masterpieces for organ. The sonatas are also considered to be amongst his most difficult compositions for the instrument.
context_section_description: Ich gehe alle Sonntage um 12 uhr zum Baron von Suiten—und da wird nichts gespiellt als Händl und Bach.— ich mach mir eben eine Collection von den Bachischen fugen.— so wohl sebastian als Emanuel und friedemann.— Dann auch von den händlishcen ... Sie werden auch wissen daß der Engländer Bach gestorben ist? — schade der Musikalischer Welt!
  At noon every Sunday I go to the Baron van Swieten's where nothing but Handel and Bach is played. I am making a collection of Bach fugues, not only of Sebastian but also of Emanuel and Friedemann. Then also those of Handel ... Have you also heard that the English Bach has died? What a shame for the musical world!
  — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vienna, 10 April 1782, letter to his father in Salzburg
  In the eighteenth century in Germany, the organ sonatas were transmitted through hand copies made by Bach's pupils and circle, although no copies of the complete collection survive from students such as Johann Peter Kellner, Johann Friedrich Agricola, and Johann Christian Kittel. A copy made by Kittel of part of the autograph manuscript survives; and Johann Ludwig Krebs and Johann Gottfried Walther made copies of individual movements that might predate the manuscript. In 1764 handwritten copies of three movements of the sonatas were also available from the Leipzig publisher Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, who also produced librettos of Bach's cantatas during his lifetime.
  Later in the eighteenth century publishers could supply hand copies of the entire collection: in 1799 the Viennese publisher Johann Traeg advertised the collection on their lists. After Bach's death the organ sonatas entered the standard repertoire of German organists, although more as a benchmark for the mastery of technique than for public performance. The organ sonatas were also disseminated amongst musical amateurs in more accessible arrangements as chamber works or Hausmusik for private performance in the home: an arrangement for two harpsichords, with each player taking an upper part and the bass line, was probably first copied by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach or Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and might have originated from domestic music-making in the Bach household. 
  The first printed score for organ only appeared in the early nineteenth century and was also derived from the autograph manuscript. It was published around 1815 in Zurich by the Swiss musicologist Hans Georg Nägeli. The son of a musically inclined Protestant pastor in Wetzikon, Nägeli showed precocious musical skills. In 1790 he moved to Zurich where he took lessons with the Swiss pianist Johann David Brünings, who introduced him to the music of Bach. A year later he set up a music shop and in 1794 a publishing house. Corresponding with Breitkopf and the widow of C.P.E. Bach, he was able to acquire Bach manuscripts, including that of the Mass in B minor, which he eventually published. His Bach publications started with the Well Tempered Clavier in 1801 and the Art of the Fugue in 1802. His interests later turned to pedagogy and singing: in Zurich he set up an institute similar to the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin of Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch.
  There are also later copies of the autograph manuscript in Vienna, made by Johann Christian Oley in the 1760s, and in Berlin, in the library of Princess Anna Amalia, which contained an exceptional number of Bach manuscripts. Bach's former pupil Johann Kirnberger was music teacher to Anna Amalia: like her flute-playing brother Frederick the Great, who employed Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach as court harpsichordist, she was a keen amateur musician, composing and playing the organ.
  The royal court was not the only place in Berlin where Bach was performed. The family of Daniel Itzig, banker to Frederick the Great and his father, also provided a cultural milieu for musical connoisseurs: four of his daughters, Sara, Zippora, Fanny and Bella (maternal grandmother of Felix Mendelssohn), were all keyboard players. Sara was the most gifted harpsichordist, of professional standard. When Wilhelm Friedemann Bach moved to Berlin from Dresden, she took l
caption: Gottfried van Swieten
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