The first of Bach's works to be engraved was the Mühlhausen Cantata, Gott ist mein König, (parts only). It was published in 1708, when Bach was twenty-three years old. Forkel refers to Partita I. in the first Part of the Clavierübung (P. bk. 205 p. 4). It was engraved in 1726, when Bach was forty-one years old. In 1731 he republished it, with five others that had appeared in the interval, in the first Part of the Clavierübung (P. bks. 205, 206).
Forkel's rather casual critical axioms seem to be as follows: “Publication postulates excellence”; “An amended MS. implies that the original text was not a finished work of art.”
It was the first work engraved by Bach himself, though the parts of the Cantata Gott ist mein König had been published by the Town Council at Mühlhausen in 1708.
The work was published at Leipzig “in Commission bey Boetii Seel, hinderlassenen Tochter, unter den Rath-hause.” The Suites, or Partitas (P. bks. 205, 206), are in B flat major, C minor, A minor, D major, G major, E minor.
In 1801 Hoffmeister and Kühnel unsuccessfully attempted to publish Bach's works by subscription.
The Partita in B minor (P. bk. 208 p. 20).
The work was published in 1735. The Italian Concerto in F major is published by Novello and P. bk. 207.
The work appeared in 1739. It was intended to contain works for the Organ only; the four Duetti are incongruous and seem to have crept in by mistake. See the scheme of the work discussed in Terry, Bach's Chorals, Part III. The Choral Preludes are in Novello's ed., bk. xvi.
The work was published circ. 1747-50. Five of the six movements certainly, and the sixth with practical certainty, are adaptations to the Organ of movements out of Bach's Church Cantatas. See Parry, Bach, p. 535. The Chorals are in Novello's ed., bk. xvi.
See supra, p. 65.