Historical Questions

I have recently joined this group, and come with a number of questions
which some of you experts may be able to help me with.

1) Well Temperament arose in the latter half of the 17th century and
Bach attempted to popularize it circa 1716 with his first WTC.
Presumably the further a piece�s key is removed from C, the stranger itwill sound to the modern ear, but I have never heard the preludes and
fugues played on a well tempered instrument. Does such a recording
exist? 2) More generally, do recorded demonstrations of the differences between
various systems of tuning exist? I am particularly interested in the
efforts composers made in increasing the range of modulation in their
compositions in the era when the Just system was pre-eminent.

2) As I understand it, the first clearly stated modern suggestion for ET
came from the Belgian scientist Simon Stevin in the early 17th century
but was not put into general practice for well over 100 years for a
number of reasons. Aside from aesthetic preferences, people did not know
how to calculate the twelfth root of 2 (Stevin did, but made a few
calculational errors). Furthermore, the understanding of overtones and
beats came only in the mid 17th century and some time would have been
necessary for tuners to learn how to tune by beats. Any information
about the transition to Equal temperament would be of interest to me.

Ed Remler

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