Lindley lecture - crossposted from HPSCHD-L

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I too don't quite know why Lindley did not push harder to get some
sort of Baroque instrument into use. Perhaps because it *would* be
more effort and he was clearly jet-lagged.

In the event the instruments consisted of the small upright in a
representative appropriate-for-Bach circulating temperament, and a
grand in ET. Lindley thought at the last minute to demonstrate the
effect of putting three pure thirds on top of each other with a
harpsichord, but it turned out that the harpsichord-looking-after
person had left the tuning hammer at home.

Difference in beats was demonstrated (quite audibly) by the method of
holding down two keys silently or playing softly, then striking the
beat note fortissimo staccato to excite the operative harmonics. I
assume he would not have applied the same method to a hpcd...

Lindley then moved to his main point that late 17th, and 18th century
circulating temperaments move more quickly 'down' into the flats than
they move 'up' through the sharps. Also the claim that 'German'
circulating tunings are generally less unequal than 'French'
(presumably at comparable dates). Hence his own recipe or rather
style-of-tuning-within-limits, more or less one part ordinaire plus
one part equal - resulting here in three pure fifths from F through
Ab.

Live demonstrations consisted of excerpts from various preludes of WTC
I played from memory, both in the original keys and transposed.
Despite the drawbacks of the small piano (on which I quite agree with
Paul) there were audible differences in purity and musical effect
between keys. The point as I understood it was that the character and
compositional technique of the musical composition were tailored to
the intonation of the key (- or was it vice versa?) He made it clear
though that the key does not *uniquely* determine the sort of
composition that would be particularly successful.

After the formal lecture Lindley outlined to me the crux of his
musical case against Brad by first saying - 'His E major is like my
F# major' [i.e. too hard & impure] - playing the E major prelude
suitably transposed - then 'His Ab major is too relaxed' - playing
that prelude in a lively and detached manner. We also noted the open
fifth in b.5 of that piece, as opposed to the full Eb major chord when
the analogous passage occurs in the dominant.

As a side remark, one can compare the E major prelude with its
sustained consonant harmony, with the F# major prelude which has no
chords and where even the implied harmonies are mostly dissonances.

Then we had the recorded organ examples (small Fisk instrument, as at
the Michaelstein conference) where one point was the frequency of F#
major appearing as a final chord, but the almost complete avoidance of
C#/Db major in root position. (See BWV 687, 721 especially, 732.)
Since this remark can hardly apply to the WTC, this was one apparent
weak point, or at least one that needed to be cleared up, in a claim
that Bach's harpsichord tuning preference followed a similar pattern
to the organ tunings he wrote for. (Afterwards I got at least a slight
clarification: published works were likely be played on meantone
instruments, though most of Bach's organ works were unpublished, like
the WTC.)

Another somewhat speculative reflection is the possible transposition
of the C# WTC I prelude from a (musically inferior) original form in
fewer sharps... but with more major thirds.

On the flat side we had some fine excerpts from O Mensch Bewein. Then
Lindley connected the Klavieruebung III (with its three-flats
dominance) with the visit to Naumburg which housed a new Hildebrandt
organ with a 'Neidhardt' tuning. Lindley's opinion is that the big Eb
major emphasis in this publication was a signal to any would-be player
that meantone or simple modifications were out. Staccato root position
chords of Ab major and Db major in the big Prelude were mentioned as a
sign of 'tailoring' to a tuning in which these chords are still not so
pure as others. The extremely chromatic end of the big Kyrie BWV 671
was played, to somewhat startling effect. That was the one point at
which I thought the Lindley style might be too unequal - indeed it is
more unequal than the Neidhardts.

Recent developments were not treated in great musical or
historiographical detail during the lecture - time was somewhat
running out at that point. In any case I should not pre-empt the
Lindley/Ortgies Early Music article which should appear relatively
soon.

Then to dinner and to find out what Prof. L. had been doing in India
for the previous three months - mostly school teaching...

Maybe I should not say it on this list, but there is a project
(dependent on funding) to record WTC I a la Lindley with a
professional pianist in Berlin.

~~~T~~~