The Orgelbüchlein (“Little Organ Book”) was written by Johann Sebastian Bach during the period of 1708–1714, while he was court organist at the ducal court in Weimar. It was planned as a set of 164 chorale preludes (smaller-scale compositions based on chorale melodies) spanning the liturgical year; however, Bach only completed forty-six chorale preludes and left less than two measures of a forty-seventh. The chorale preludes in this collection constitute BWV 599–644 within Bach’s total compositional output. The Orgelbüchlein is at the same time a collection of organ music for church services, a treatise on composition, a religious statement and a pedagogical manual.

“ A further step towards perfecting this form was taken by Bach when he made the contrapuntal elements in his music a means of reflecting certain emotional aspects of the words. Pachelbel had not attempted this; he lacked the fervid feeling which would have enabled him thus to enter into his subject. And it is entering into it, and not a mere depicting of it. For, once more be it said, in every vital movement of the world external to us we behold the image of a movement within us; and every such image must react upon us to produce the corresponding emotion in that inner world of feeling. ”
—Philipp Spitta, 1873, writing about the Orgelbüchlein in Volume I of his biography of Bach