RE: Bach's Tuning on Christmas

This is a report on my recent Microtonal Bach radio show on WKCR in New
York on Christmas Day.

In addition to the usual broadcasts of Armin Shoof playing Bach in
Werckmeister III (using the same organ used by Dietrich Buxtehude); Ton
Koopman's Brandenburg recordings in WIII (Erato 751342) with his Amsterdam
Baroque Orchestra; Fantasias in WIII by Igor Kipnis on both harpsichord
and clavichord; there were 2 notable additions.

Flutist Andrew Bolotowsky demonstrated on the A minor Prelude the
difference between 12ET playing of the opening movement versus WIII tuning
(effected by the precise placement of tape over parts of open tone holes,
the bottom hole, and alternate fingerings.

Also popular with listeners was a discussion of Pablo Casals' intuitive
microtonality. In the 1928 remastered CD performance of the C minor Cello
Suite, Casals expresses each note under in pitch to what it would be in
archetypical 12ET. In fact, every note of both C minor and C major is
pitched below ideal 12ET placement. In the only other minor key Suite
- D minor -which has its minor third sharper than ideal 12ET, Casals
played the opening motif with a sharpened third.

I understand Casals wrote about his ideas on expressive intonation
and I am quite curious to learn more. However, it is highly
unlikely that Casals had any knowledge of how to track specific keys in
Werckmeister III. Translation of the Werckmeister treatise of 1691
remains available only in archaic Thuringian German (and in an unpublished
English traslation by Oberlin undergrad Elizabeth Hehr).

The clear implication is that Bach's music signaled to Casals an
expressive coloring for these 2 Suites (mainly prominent in the first
movement of each), the only minor keys used in the set of 6. What an
intuition!

Johnny Reinhard
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@ios.com

p.s. to tune Werckmeister III- tune a quarter-comma flat fifth up from a F
so that the "perfect" fifth is a C at roughly 696 cents; continue a 696
cents fifth above that to G; Continue again 696 cents to D; Now 3/2
perfect fifths to A and then to E and then to B; 696 cents to F#; and the
remainder of fifths 3/2 pure until returning to F.


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Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 15:06:32 -0800
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