music21.corpus.chorales¶

This file makes it easier to access Bach’s chorales through various numbering schemes and filters and includes the corpus.chorales.Iterator() class for easily iterating through the chorale collection.

ChoraleList¶

class music21.corpus.chorales.ChoraleList¶

A searchable list of Bach’s chorales by various numbering systems:

Note that multiple chorales share the same title, so it’s best to iterate over one of the other lists to get them all.

The list of chorales comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chorale_harmonisations_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach which does not have all chorales in the Bärenreitter-Kirnberger or Riemenschneider numberings since it only includes BWV 250-438.

>>> bcl = corpus.chorales.ChoraleList()
>>> info358 = bcl.byBudapest[358]
>>> for key in sorted(list(info358)):
...   print(f'{key} {info358[key]}')
baerenreiter 68
budapest 358
bwv 431
kalmus 358
notes None
riemenschneider 68
title Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein
>>> c = corpus.parse('bach/bwv' + str(info358['bwv']))
>>> c.show()  # shows Bach BWV431

More fully:

>>> b = corpus.parse('bwv' + str(corpus.chorales.ChoraleList().byRiemenschneider[2]['bwv']))
>>> b
<music21.stream.Score ...>

ChoraleList methods

ChoraleList.prepareList()¶

puts a list of Bach Chorales into dicts of dicts called

self.byBudapest self.byBWV self.byRiemenschneider

etc.

ChoraleListRKBWV¶

class music21.corpus.chorales.ChoraleListRKBWV¶

A searchable list of Bach’s chorales by various numbering systems:

Note that multiple chorales share the same title, so it’s best to iterate over one of the other lists to get them all.

The list of chorales comes from Margaret Greentree (formerly at jsbchorales.net) who compiled all chorales in the corpus, but only had numbers for the kalmus, riemenschneider, and bwv numbering systems.

>>> bcl = corpus.chorales.ChoraleListRKBWV()
>>> info155 = bcl.byRiemenschneider[155]
>>> for key in sorted(list(info155)):
...   print(f'{key} {info155[key]}')
bwv 344
kalmus 173
riemenschneider 155
title Hilf, Herr Jesu, laß gelingen
>>> c = corpus.parse('bach/bwv' + str(info155['bwv']))
>>> c.show()  # shows Bach BWV344

More fully:

>>> theNumber = corpus.chorales.ChoraleListRKBWV().byRiemenschneider[2]['bwv']
>>> b = corpus.parse('bwv' + str(theNumber))
>>> b
<music21.stream.Score ...>

ChoraleListRKBWV methods

ChoraleListRKBWV.prepareList()¶

puts a list of Bach Chorales into dicts of dicts called

self.byKalmus self.byBWV self.byRiemenschneider self.byTitle

Iterator¶

class music21.corpus.chorales.Iterator(currentNumber: int | None = None, highestNumber: int | None = None, *, numberingSystem: str = 'riemenschneider', returnType: str = 'stream', iterationType: str = 'number', analysis: bool = False, numberList: List[int] | None = None, titleList: List[str] | None = None)¶

This is a class for iterating over many Bach Chorales. It is designed to make it easier to use one of music21’s most accessible datasets. It will parse each chorale in the selected range in a lazy fashion so that a list of chorales need not be parsed up front. To select a range of chorales, first select a .numberingSystem (‘riemenschneider’, ‘bwv’, ‘kalmus’, ‘budapest’, ‘baerenreiter’, or ‘title’). Then, set .currentNumber to the lowest number in the range and .highestNumber to the highest in the range. This can either be done by catalogue number (iterationType = ‘number’) or by index (iterationType = ‘index’).

Note that these numbers are 1-indexed (as most catalogues are) and unlike Python’s range feature, the final number is included.

Changing the numberingSystem will reset the iterator and change the range values to span the entire numberList. The iterator can be initialized with three parameters (currentNumber, highestNumber, numberingSystem). For example corpus.chorales.Iterator(1, 26,’riemenschneider’) iterates through the riemenschneider numbered chorales from 1 to 26. Additionally, the following keywords can be set:

returnType = either ‘stream’ (default) or ‘filename’
iterationType = either ‘number’ or ‘index’
titleList = [list, of, titles]
numberList = [list, of, numbers]

>>> for chorale in corpus.chorales.Iterator(1, 4, returnType='filename'):
...    print(chorale)
bach/bwv269
bach/bwv347
bach/bwv153.1
bach/bwv86.6

>>> BCI = corpus.chorales.Iterator()
>>> BCI.numberingSystem
'riemenschneider'

>>> BCI.currentNumber
1

>>> BCI.highestNumber
371

An Exception will be raised if the number set is not in the numbering system selected, or if the numbering system selected is not valid.

>>> BCI.currentNumber = 377
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
music21.corpus.chorales.BachException: 377 does not correspond to a
    chorale in the riemenschneider numbering system

>>> BCI.numberingSystem = 'not a numbering system'
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
music21.corpus.chorales.BachException: not a numbering system is not a valid
    numbering system for Bach Chorales.

If the numberingSystem ‘title’ is selected, the iterator must be initialized with a list of titles. It will iterate through the titles in the order of the list.

>>> BCI.numberingSystem = 'title'
>>> BCI.returnType = 'filename'
>>> BCI.titleList = ['Jesu, meine Freude',
...                  'Gott hat das Evangelium',
...                  'Not a Chorale']
Not a Chorale will be skipped because it is not a recognized title

>>> for chorale in BCI:
...    print(chorale)
bach/bwv358
bach/bwv319

The numberList, which, by default, includes all chorales in the chosen numberingSystem, can be set like the titleList. In the following example, note that the first chorale in the given numberList will not be part of the iteration because the first currentNumber is set to 2 at the start by the first argument. (If iterationType==’index’, setting the currentNumber to 1 and the highestNumber to 7 would have the same effect as the given example.

>>> BCI = corpus.chorales.Iterator(2, 371, numberingSystem='riemenschneider',
...                                numberList=[1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 190, 371, 500],
...                                returnType='filename')
500 will be skipped because it is not in the numberingSystem riemenschneider

>>> for chorale in BCI:
...    print(chorale)
bach/bwv347
bach/bwv153.1
bach/bwv86.6
bach/bwv281
bach/bwv337
bach/bwv278

Elements in the iterator can be accessed by index as well as slice.

>>> for chorale in corpus.chorales.Iterator(returnType='filename')[4:10]:
...    print(chorale)
bach/bwv86.6
bach/bwv267
bach/bwv281
bach/bwv17.7
bach/bwv40.8
bach/bwv248.12-2
bach/bwv38.6

>>> print(corpus.chorales.Iterator(returnType='filename')[55])
bach/bwv121.6

For the first 20 chorales in the Riemenschneider numbering system, there are professionally annotated roman numeral analyses in romanText format, courtesy of Dmitri Tymoczko of Princeton University. To get them as an additional part to the score set returnType to “stream”, and add a keyword “analysis = True”:

If chorales are accessed through the Iterator(), the metadata.title attribute will have the correct German title. This is different from the metadata returned by the parser which does not give the German title but rather the BWV number.

>>> corpus.chorales.Iterator(returnType='stream')[1].metadata.title
'Ich dank’ dir, lieber Herre'

Iterator read/write properties

Iterator.currentNumber¶: The currentNumber is the number of the chorale (in the set numberingSystem) for the next chorale to be parsed by the iterator. It is initially the first chorale in whatever numberingSystem is set, but it can be changed to any other number in the numberingSystem as desired as long as it does not go above the highestNumber which is the boundary of the iteration.

Iterator.highestNumber¶: The highestNumber is the number of the chorale (in the set numberingSystem) for the last chorale to be parsed by the iterator. It is initially the highest numbered chorale in whatever numberingSystem is set, but it can be changed to any other number in the numberingSystem as desired as long as it does not go below the currentNumber of the iteration.

Iterator.iterationType¶: This property determines how boundary numbers are interpreted, as indices or as catalogue numbers.

Iterator.numberList¶: Allows access to the catalogue numbers (or indices if iterationType == ‘index’) that will be iterated over. This can be set to a specific list of numbers. They will be sorted.

Iterator.numberingSystem¶: This property determines which numbering system to iterate through chorales with. It can be set to ‘bwv’, ‘kalmus’, ‘baerenreiter’, ‘budapest’, or ‘riemenschneider’. It can also be set to ‘title’ in which case the iterator needs to be given a list of chorale titles in .titleList. At this time, the titles need to be exactly as they appear in the dictionary it queries.

Iterator.returnType¶: This property determines what the iterator returns; ‘stream’ is the default and causes the iterator to parse each chorale. If this is set to ‘filename’, the iterator will return the filename of each chorale but not parse it.

Iterator.titleList¶: This is to store the list of titles to iterate over if .numberingSystem is set to ‘title’.

Iterator methods

Iterator.__getitem__(key)¶

Functions¶

music21.corpus.chorales.getByTitle(title)¶

Return a Chorale by title (or title fragment) or None

>>> germanTitle = "Sach' Gott heimgestellt"
>>> c = corpus.chorales.getByTitle(germanTitle)
>>> c.metadata.title
"Ich hab' mein' Sach' Gott heimgestellt"

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