371 Four-Part Chorales, Vol 1: Nos. 1-198 (For Organ or Piano), Comb Bound Book (Kalmus Edition) Plastic Comb – March 1, 1985

This is Vol 1 of 2 on the Bach Chorales, containing Nos. 1-198. It has much to recommend it. The plastic comb binding makes for ease of use. The horizontal formatting works well. The chorales are fairly easy to read, with larger, more spacious formatting than in some editions, but still a bit smaller than I would prefer. Noteheads are dark, and the printing is fairly, but not extremely clear. The German title of each chorale is placed with the piece, with an index in the front. The paperstock is of good quality and is a very light almost grayish white that is easy on the eyes. I am using these for sight reading practice at the recommendation of a music educator, and I am finding them quite challenging but doable at the intermediate level. Plus I am getting quite a solid musical education in voicing, harmonizing, etc. from one of the greatest of masters as I go. There may be a better edition of these somewhere, but I looked at quite a few, and this was the nicest one that I could find. If anyone knows of a better edition, one with clearer printing and a larger format, eg, I would appreciate it if you would let me know in a 'comment.'

Perfect for sight reading and analysis of conterpoint, vertical and horizontal study, and learning the tendencies of Bach's harmonizations. The Riemenschneider edition is very difficult for me to sight read and hence slows me down when doing analysis. Highly recommended. The four parts are written in the grand staff, piano style so that soprano and alto are in the treble clef and the tenor and bass are in the bass clef, with perfect spacing for all. This edition is perfect for sight reading and analysis. I have all of my students sight read and analyze from these two editions.

The headline pretty much says it all. The comb binding works fine if your gentle with it. The music printing is large enough to be easily readable, my only complaint is a few noteheads (lit. a few in the whole book of tens of thousands of notes) didn't print very clearly (still readable and easily fixed with a pen or marker). One thing that would be nice is having the chorales keyed to the liturgical event they were used for, but that would add pages (and cost) and is easily found with a search engine. All in all a great purchase I'm very happy with. Don't miss the second volume, too.

I'm a stickler for quality printing with sheet music. This is simply the exact Breitkopf edition which is in the public domain and you can download for free online. In addition, I'm not a fan of comb bindings because books tend to fall apart much easier than even a spiral bound. In my opinion, you'd be better off buying a complete used copy of this put out by Associated Music Publishers for under $10 or paying more for another edition made from new printing plates.

These myriad little works, some as scant as a few bars of intense harmonies, few longer than a page, belong in every keyboard player's collection. Some of them you can rattle off with a quick read, others are so gnarly you can work on them for the rest of your life. With great personal rewards.

The spiral binding is a great feature for music that is otherwise public domain and available online.

I wanted open score, these aren't.

Easy to read, the binding makes it easy to flip pages

Great for site reading practice but of course scored for 4 voices so many of the bass clef notes need to played with right hand and some times the treble notes with the left hand. I guess a version scored for the piano would be easier to play. Some of the chorales although they are quite short are quite beautiful. Bach was a real master of chorale music.

Good size print … excellent. I would have liked a gap between each chorale, it feels like they`re coming at you thick and fast , a little overpowering.

Much bigger type than other editions.

Great value for money. A clearly printed book with easy page turning.