page_title: Schübler Chorales
section_title: Chorale melody
hierarchical_section_title: Schübler Chorales / Context and content / Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten, BWV 647 / Chorale melody
caption_attribution_description: Text and Melody of the church song Wer nur den Lieben Gott lässt walten
context_page_description: Sechs Chorale von verschiedener Art: auf einer Orgel mit 2 Clavieren und Pedal vorzuspielen, commonly known as the Schübler Chorales, BWV 645–650, is a set of chorale preludes composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. Johann Georg Schübler, after whom the collection came to be named, published it in 1747 or before August 1748, in Zella St. Blasii. At least five preludes of the compilation are transcribed from movements in Bach's church cantatas, mostly chorale cantatas he had composed around two decades earlier.
  The fact that Bach had gone to the trouble and expense of securing the services of a master engraver to produce a collection of note-for-note transcriptions of this kind indicates that he did not regard the Schübler Chorales as a minor piece of hack-work, but as a significant public statement. These six chorales provide an approachable version of the music of the cantatas through the more marketable medium of keyboard transcriptions. Virtually all Bach's cantatas were unpublished in his lifetime.
context_section_description: Hymn tune: "Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten" ("Who allows God alone to rule him"), Zahn No. 2778.
caption: Hymn tune of BWV 647
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