The ideas of this paper originated in the days when I did my MMus degree in performance at Leeds University in 1986. I am enormously grateful to the following people who have patiently listened to my original hypothesis and generously given me various ideas about how to bring about this theory to the present shape - Clemens von Gleich, Richard Greene, Stephen Jan, David Ledbetter, Tadashi Inoue, Richard Jones, David Piekaar, Richard Rastall, Julian Rushton, Grete Wehmeyer and Philip Wilby.
¹ Wilhelm Werker, Studien uber die Symmetrie im Bau der Fugen und die motivische Zusammengehorigkeit der Praludien und Fugen des 'Wohltemperierten Klaviers' von Johann Sebastian Bach (Leipzig, 1922)
² According to Hans Brandts Buys, Het Wohltemperirte Clavier van Johann Sebastian Bach (Arnhem: van Loghum Slaterus, revised edition, 1984), 82, which quotes Dieben's 'magische rechthoek' (magic rectangle), Dieben's article is reported to have been published in 1954/55, but I have so far been unable to trace the original publication.
³ Harry Hahn, Symbol und Glaube im I.Teil des Wohltemperierten Klaviers von Joh. Seb. Bach. Beitrag zu einer Bedeutungskunde (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1973)
⁴ Kees van Houten and Marinus Kasbergen, Bach en het getal. Een onderzoek naar de getallensymboliek en de esoterische achtergronden hiervan in het werk van Johann Sebastian Bach (De Walburg Pres Zutphen, 1985)
⁵ Ursula Kirkendale, 'The Source for Bach's Musical Offering: The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian', Journal of American Musicological Society XXXIII (1980) 88-141.
⁶ Alan Street, 'The Rhetorico-Musical structure of the "Goldberg" Variations: Bach's Clavierubung IV and the INSTITUTIO ORATORIA of Quintilian', Music Analysis VI/1-2 (1987) 89-131.
⁷ See reviews by Peter Williams in his article 'The Snares and Delusions of Musical Rhetoric: Some Examples from Recent Writings on J. S. Bach', in Alte Musik: Praxis und Reflexion, edited by Peter Reidemeister and Veronika Gutmann (Winterthur, 1983), 230-240, and 'Encounters with the Chromatic Fourth ... or, More on Figurenlehre' in The Musical Times CXXVI/1707 (1985) 276-278, and Christoph Wolff, Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard Univ. Press, 1991) 421-423.
⁸ The following are the number of notes in the fugue subject Nissen presents and the number(s) I think it should be - Fg.c#: 21 / 19 (or 22 when we see it as a phrase); Fg.d#: 16/13; Fg.E: 5/6; Fg.F: 90/20; Fg.f: 30/21, 25, 28 or 29; Fg.g: 17/18; Fg.B: 17/7 or 12.
⁹ The following are the number of bars Nissen presents and the number I think it should be - Fg.c#: 70/71; Pr.E^b: 70/71; Fg.E^b: 10+7 [!]/20 or 21?; Pr.F: 70/72; Fg.F: 84/99; Fg.f: 84/85; Fg.b^b: 100/101
¹⁰ Fg.d#. See also footnote 27 above.
¹¹ Other movements in 43 bars are as follows- Versus 6 'So feiern wir das hohe Fest' from Cantata 'Christ lag in Todes Banden', (BWV 4/7); Aria 'Ein unbarmherziges Gerichte wird uber dich gewis ergehen' from Cantata 'Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim?' (BWV 89/3); Aria 'Jesu, las dich finden las doch meine Sunden' from Cantata 'Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren' (BWV 154/4); Aria 'Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus' from missa breves in G major (BWV 236/5); Aria 'Esurientes implevit bonis' from Magnificat (BWV 243/9); 'Praeludium' in G minor (BWV 535/1); 'Praeludium' in D minor (BWV 539/1); Choral Prelude 'Ach, was ist doch unser Leben' (BWV 743);  'Partita II' from 'O Gott, du frommer Gott' (BWV 767/2); 'Largo' from Concerto in G minor (BWV 975/2); Prelude in C minor for Lute (BWV 999).
¹² According to Wetzel, Bach used Psalms 17 places in his cantatas. See Christoph Wenzel, 'Die Psalmen in Bachs Kantaten im Detempore der Leipziger Schaffensperiode', in Bach als Alsleger der Bibel. Theologische und musikwissenschaftliche Studien zum Werk Johann Sebastian Bachs, edited by Martin Petzoldt (Gottingen, 1985) 131-150.
¹³ Richard Jones, 'Further observations on the development of "The Well-Tempered Clavier II", The Musical Times CXXXII/1786 (1991), 609. See also footnote 17.
¹⁴ Prautzsch, Vor deinen Thron (1980), 13, suggests that certain number association can be made to the Psalms that are listed in Calov's Bible Commentary Bach possessed as 'prophetic psalms'. Among 31 Psalms listed under this category, 22 and 23 are among them. See English translation in Robin Leaver, J. S. Bach and Scripture, Glosses from the Calov Bible Commentary (St.Louis, 1985), 186-7.
¹⁵ Nissen, 76, describes the prelude as 'the death of Jesus' although he does not mention the relation to Psalm 22. He assigns to the tune of the prelude an interesting text 'Jesus starb am Kreuz fur mich den Tod'.
¹⁶ See Martin Petzoldt, 'Passionspredigt und Passionsmusik der Bachzeit', in Johann Sebastian Bach: Matthaus-Passion BWV 244. Vortrage der Sommerakademie J. S. Bach 1985 (Kassel, 1990), 8 f.
¹⁷ It is interesting to add that Jean-Philippe Rameau also describes this key as 'mournful songs' in his Traite de l'harmonie (1722). English translation is by Rita Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (New York, 1996), 301.
¹⁸ 'Psalm 23 (Expounded One Evening After Grace at the Dinner Table by Dr. Martin Luther 1536', Luther's Works, edited by Jaroslav Pelican, vol.12 (St Louis, 1955), 147. See also Earl K. Scott, 'Bach and the Twenty-Third Psalm', The Choral Journal XXII (1982) 39-42.
¹⁹ The list of Psalms and reference to Bach's cantatas are conveniently given in Die Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs im Gottesdienst (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1985), 67.
²⁰ Gray, 142.
²¹ Hermann Keller, The Well-tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach (London, 1976), 196.
²² There are two early versions, both in C major - the one in 19 bars in length and the other in 30 bars. For the detailed discussions of Bach's revisions, see James A. Brokaw II, Techniques of Expansion in the Preludes and Fugues of J. S. Bach (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1986), 213 f., and Yo Tomita, J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: A Study of its Aim, Historical Significance and Compiling Process  (PhD diss., Leeds University, 1990).
²³ Humphreys, Esoteric Structure, 7-18..
²⁴ See Hans Preuss, Johann Sebastian Bachs Bibliothek (Leipzig, 1928), 5.
²⁵ Robin Leaver claims that the additional work of Luther Bach purchased in September 1742 was that of the Altenburg edition in 10 volumes (1661-63), which is an expanded reprint (with an extensive index volume) of the Jena edition he already possessed. See his article, 'Bach and Luther', Bach IX/3 (1978),  9-12; 25-32. Leaver slightly amends his earlier theory of Bach's working with the bible in his book J. S. Bach and Scripture (St.Louis, 1985), 33. Although the paper and rastrum used for this prelude (Add. MS 35021, f.20, in the possession of the British Library, London) themselves are not datable, the musical text itself can be dated to c.1740, and it is unlikely that the purchase of this Altenburg edition is related to the composing of this prelude.
²⁶ Leaver, 'Bach and Luther', 27, takes the same view.
²⁷ Lecture given at International Sommerakademie Stuttgart 1985. [Information may be found in Helmuth Rilling, Johann Sebastian Bach: "Mattaus-Passion". Einfuhrung und Studienanleitung (Frankfurt.a.M., 1975)]
²⁸ 'Psalm 23', 153.
²⁹ It may be worth mentioning that Allemande of Suite V from the French Suite (BWV 816/1) starts with this motive. Written in G major (same as BWV 112/1 !), this movement also has pastoral character.
³⁰ It may be worth noting that there is an interesting parallel in the change of texture between this prelude and an early version of Pr.d (BWV 875a/1).
³¹ 'Psalm 23', 150.