re: bach's tunings

Carl Lumma wrote [Subject: RE: re: Bach's tunings]

|[...] I don't believe that the
|variations of consonance between keys in irregular temperament was any
|point of attraction or compositional resource for Bach.

Do you have any documentary support for your disbelief? There is a lot of
at least circumstantial evidence against your disbelief.

|And I find it more
|likely that Bach made the move to well temperament for what became possible
|within the span of a piece than for the ability of playing different pieces
|in different keys without retuning.

Why do you find this to be more likely?

Dale C. Carr

<< |[...] I don't believe that the
|variations of consonance between keys in irregular temperament was any
|point of attraction or compositional resource for Bach. >>

Greetings,
Wow, I suppose this is the nitty gritty! A "well tempered" keyboard in
1722 would very likely have had a Werckmiester-based tuning, so lets just
start from there.
The C#-F (which is really just an E#) in any plausible tuning of that time
is going to be 19 to 21 cents wide. The C-E 3rd is going to be anywhere from
O to 5 cents wide. These two widths of thirds are extremes and they produce
a very different sounding interval, how could they not have been
compositional factors for Bach?
I had suggested before, and will again, play the C and C# preludes on a
well tempered keyboard, and then transpose them to each others key. The
musical effect of the tempering is unmistakable. The C prelude doesn't work
with a lot of tempering happening in the harmony, and the C# just kinda lays
there in a key with tranquil thirds.
It could go without saying, but I won't let it, that ET frees the
listener from such complexity. However, I am going to continue believing
the evidence that centers on Kirnberger's statements, that Bach did not
approve of ET. The written record seems to support that, logic (at least
mine), supports it, and the music has, so far, clearly had more impact in a
non-equal tuning. Harpsichordists and pianofortists have known this for a
long time, pianists are just getting started.
(I am not sure that an electronic keyboard, with its built in
temperament stuff, is going to produce the same amount of
tempering-dependant "color" as an acoustic piano, so in that respect, I am
speaking from a somewhat limited perspective)
Regards,
Ed Foote

To help give some eyewitness acounts to the fore I though I'd post some
Kirnberger and Werckmeister quotes from my Bach's Tuning essay (PITCH I:2)

Kirnberger disdained 12TET and he is quite clear about it. "First, it is
impossible to tune without a monochord, or something similar. With the bare
ear consonant intervals may be tuned perfectly, but dissonant ones cannot be
determined exactly.

"Secondly, the diversity of the tones is reduced by equal temperament.
Unfortunately only two types remain, for on the one hand, all major modes
and, on the other, all minor modes are completely alike.
"Therefore, through the twenty-four scales one has not really gained
anything, but has lost a great deal.
"Equal temperament narrows the field, and merely offers the composer the
choice between the major and minor mode."

Kirnberger's contemporary, Berlin theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg wrote in
his "Versuch uber die musikalische Temperatur that: "Mr. Kirnberger himself
has more than once told me as well as others about how the famous J. S. Bach,
during the time when the former was enjoying musical instruction at his
hands, confided to him the tuning of his clavier, and how the master
expressly required of him that he 'tune all the major thirds sharp.'"

Andreas Werckmeister wrote in his "Hypomnemata musica" of 1697 - when Bach
was 12 years old - that he didn't care for 12TET: "So far I have not been
able to agree with this view, because I prefer to keep the diatonic notes
which are used most often with the diatonic tonalities, as pure as possible
in tuning."

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

>Do you have any documentary support for your disbelief? There is a lot of
>at least circumstantial evidence against your disbelief.

Could you share some with us?

>Why do you find this to be more likely?

Just a feeling I got from playing, and reading about Bach. Look back in
this thread for some discussion on the matter.

>I had suggested before, and will again, play the C and C# preludes on a
>well tempered keyboard, and then transpose them to each others key.

I presume you mean Book I.

-Carl

For those in the New area, I am plesed to announced that I will be producing
the "Microtonal Bach" segment on Christmas Day for WKCR @ 89.9 FM (Columbia
University radio) from 9:A.M. to 1 P.M. It will be my 10th year (and they
have moved me into this earlier slot). Guess why?

Johnny Reinhard