The Schübler Chorales, one of only two sets of organ works published during Bach's lifetime, owe their name to the student who collected them into one volume. The cycle charts the liturgical year, beginning with the famous 'Wachet auf!' ('Sleepers Wake!').

The Leipzig Chorales (The '18') were composed during Bach's Weimar period but were revised in Leipzig some years later. The pieces display a wealth of imagination in their setting of the themes, yet the fundamental principles of organ writing—inherited from Buxtehude and Pachelbel—remain at the heart of these chorales.

Johann Kirnberger became a student of Bach towards the end of the master's life. He grew to idolize his teacher and devoted much of his later life to collecting Bach's works. The set of chorales which bear his name were presumably never intended by Bach for publication as a 'set', but do nonetheless follow something of a liturgical cycle along the lines of that in the Schübler set.