Lute/harpsichord

Hey, no huge deal, but since we were talking about Bach, I thought this would be interesting. I was going through some of my classical guitar music, and found the "Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro," (in Eb); on the title page (of the original score) it says "Prelude for Lute o Cembal par J.S. Bach."
It's also written in bass and treble clef; but, since Bach intended it for either instrument, I wonder how his keyboard was tuned while he wrote it? If in Werck, than why also intend it for an axe in 12 eq, since the effect of the piece would be altered by switching tunings. And, according to editor Michael Lorimer, there were "awkward and uncomfortable fingerings," which, he said, would never occur in the works of a lutenist, like Weiss. Same thing happened with the solo violin sonatas, there were passages that were not playable as written on a violin (those pieces fit the guitar perfectly). And, "The Art of Fugue" doesn't even specify an instrument, so how do you tune it? I've often wondered if Bach was hearing things in his head that transcended ANY instrument, and if he wanted to hear music in pure tunings, and found the tempered systems available to him very limited?

Seems to me like the musical CONCEPT of a piece was very important to Bach, and others like him, and the physical playing of the music was only a part of the process; and the actual instrument it was played on was less important yet (but, that doesn't imply that playing a piece was NOT important). And, the more I learn about early European music, the more I realize how dynamic the tuning situation was back then, as opposed to our present time, where discussions of tuning are pretty scarce. As always, I get a lot out of this list from time to time...best...Hstick
myspace.com/microstick

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, <microstick@...> wrote:
>
[big snip]
> Seems to me like the musical CONCEPT of a piece was very important
to Bach, and others like him, and the physical playing of the music was
only a part of the process; and the actual instrument it was played on
was less important yet (but, that doesn't imply that playing a piece
was NOT important).

And to many modern composers too, I'm sure. I can't speak for others,
but will make a few observations about my own experience here.

You wrote of Bach hearing things in his head, and that's the *most
common* way I first hear my own music. Though I'm still open to the
felicitous surprise of hearing something new, either in the environment
around me, or in an unpremeditated collection of notes on a particular
instrument, from which musical pieces grow quite naturally using one's
accumulated repertoire of compsitional techniques.

These "found sounds" are quite specific as to timbre and tuning (hence
instrument), so pieces based on them tend to use such instruments.
(With luck, such a piece may still bear translation to another kind of
instrummentation - tuning and timbre - entirely.)

However, the musical idea may be indifferent to tuning, providing only
that one has recognisable fourths, thirds and seconds. Still, this is
not always the case: some musical ideas demand a particular tuning as
part of their feeling, or ethos.

Musical ideas that are indifferent to tuning seem to me to primarily
melodic or rhthymic. Those ideas that are primarily harmonic are less
forgiving of changes in tuning from the original conception.

Regards,
Yahya