Ever wonder what BWV stands for or where those numbers came from?
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV; lit. Bach works catalogue; German: [̍ˈbax ˈvɛrkɛ fɛrˈtsaɪçnɪs]) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2a, was published in 1998.
BWV numbers were assigned to 1,126 compositions in the 20th century, and more have been added to the catalogue in the 21st century. The Anhang (Anh.; Annex) of the BWV lists over 200 lost, doubtful and spurious compositions.
The first edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis was published in 1950. It allocated a unique number to every known composition by Bach. Wolfgang Schmieder, the editor of that catalogue, grouped the compositions by genre, largely following the 19th-century Bach Gesellschaft (BG) edition for the collation (e.g. BG cantata number = BWV number of the cantata):[1]
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis ( BWV; lit. Bach works catalogue; German: [̍ˈbax ˈvɛrkɛ fɛrˈtsaɪçnɪs]) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV 2a, was published in 1998.