WTC

Hi Peter

I for one am getting won over by your arguments to
the point of wondering if Bach could have
experimented with 12-eq given the ease with which
he could tune his keyboards. And that he might
even have liked the result, who can say in
absence of any evidence one way or the other.

How extensive is the extant Bach correspondence?
Is it possible that he or his sons or a contemporary
could have mentioned such an experiment?

Though I'd say that it couldn't be regarded as the
intended tuning surely if one wants to be historically
accurate as then one wants to play in the tuning that
would be normal for performance of the pieces for
the time, so well tempered.

Similarly Beethoven might well have liked the sound
of his piano pieces on a more modern piano, but to be
historically accurate one might want to play them on a
piano of his time.

Thanks,

Robert

In a message dated 12/12/2003 8:50:03 AM Eastern Standard Time,
robertwalker@ntlworld.com writes:

> I for one am getting won over by your arguments to
> the point of wondering if Bach could have
> experimented with 12-eq given the ease with which
> he could tune his keyboards. And that he might
> even have liked the result, who can say in
> absence of any evidence one way or the other.
>

Actually, it was 15 minutes, not 10 minutes, that Bach was reputed to take in
order to tune his own clavier. While one might think this would include ET,
I would doubt it. All the more so because Andreas Werckmeister, himself,
published that he could tune his clavier in a quarter of an hour. This predates
the Bach legend.

best, Johnny