Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Peter Williams "Squiggle" hypothesis?

The Bach scholar
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Williams-Peter.htm

speculates in his book
'J.S. Bach - A Life in Music' Cambridge Univ. Press 2007

Review:
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521533744

German tramslation: ISBN 978-3-940731-08-1
on p.481 , chap. 8 (Tunings and Temperaments) by guessing:
"...hat vielleicht sie ( his wife: Anna Magdalena)
und nicht der Komonist die Girlande des WTC hinzugefügt?"

'...perhaps she (Anna Magdalena)
but not the composer had added the girland?'

Quest:
Any second thoughts about that hypothesis?

bye
A.S.

🔗John Garside <garsidejl@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Andreas Sparschuh" <a_sparschuh@...>
wrote:
>
> The Bach scholar
> http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Williams-Peter.htm
>
> speculates in his book
> 'J.S. Bach - A Life in Music' Cambridge Univ. Press 2007
>
> Review:
> http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521533744
>
> German tramslation: ISBN 978-3-940731-08-1
> on p.481 , chap. 8 (Tunings and Temperaments) by guessing:
> "...hat vielleicht sie ( his wife: Anna Magdalena)
> und nicht der Komonist die Girlande des WTC hinzugefügt?"
>
> '...perhaps she (Anna Magdalena)
> but not the composer had added the girland?'
>
> Quest:
> Any second thoughts about that hypothesis?
>
> bye
> A.S.
>

Unlikely since the word "girland" doesn't seem to exist within the
English dictionary! Not mine anyway (Concise Oxford).
Regards,
JohnG

🔗Andreas Sparschuh <a_sparschuh@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "John Garside" <garsidejl@...> wrote:

> Unlikely since the word "girland" doesn't seem to exist within the
> English dictionary! Not mine anyway (Concise Oxford).

hi John,
try instaed in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concise_Oxford_English_Dictionary
there the word "garland"

http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=wlqAU.&search=Girlande
reverse
http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=thMx..&search=garland

Quote:
http://delphi.zsg-rottenburg.de/muslekt8.html
"Andreas Sparschuh entdeckte 1998 (und berichtete 1999 bei der
Jahrestagung der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung darüber) , dass
man die Girlande auf dem Titelblatt von Bachs wohltemperierten
Klavier, I. Teil, 1722 als Stimmungsanweisung interpretieren könnte.
Es ist erstaunlich, dass man dies Jahrhunderte lang übersehen hatte.
Die Girlande kann als Vorschrift zum Stimmen des Quintenzirkels
gesehen werden, war es doch damals üblich, die Quinten, die im
Quintenzirkel ja angepasst werden müssen, durch Auszählung der
Schwebungen zu ermitteln und die Schleifen in den Kringeln können dazu
Hinweise geben."

tr:

'A.S. discovered in 1998
(and reported in 1999 at the annual conference of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Mathematiker-Vereinigung
that the garland on JSB's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-Tempered_Clavier
could be interpreted as tuning script.
Amazingly that was ignored for centuries.
The encoded garland can be regarded as rule for tuning the
circle of 5ths, because at then it was usual to fit the 5ths
by counting beats, in order to match the 5ths-circle.
The curled loops in the cracknels can be viewed as advice
for that (possible temperament).'

Conclusion:
In that imputed sense
P. Williams's hypothesis could mean, that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Magdalena_Bach
tuned to her's husband satisfaction, as suggested by that pic:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Anna_Magdalena_Bach.jpg
alike as she had dedicated the corresponding "squiggles" to him
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Anna-magdalena-bach-noteboo.jpg
as already earlier in the same year 1722.

Quest:
That opens an other discussion as in the alleged case of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Mari%C4%87
"The extent of MariD's contributions to Einstein's Annus Mirabilis
Papers is controversial. According to Evan Harris Walker, a physicist,
the basic ideas for relativity came from MariD. Senta Troemel-Ploetz,
a German linguist, says that the ideas may have been Einstein's, but
MariD did the mathematics."

Analogous claim about JSB's
'Annus-Mirabilis' 1722:
....the idea of the WTC may have been Bach's own,
but A.M. did the tuning for him.

"...her mother, Margaretha Elisabeth Liebe,
was the daughter of an organist."
May be,
A.M. helped since childhood togehter with her mother
to tune her's grandfather's organ by counting beats
as the quaint "squiggles" might suggest?

bye
A.S.

🔗Jack <gvr.jack@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Andreas Sparschuh" <a_sparschuh@...>
wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "John Garside" <garsidejl@> wrote:
> ... Anna_Magdalena_Bach
> tuned to her's husband satisfaction, as suggested by that pic:

> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/
Anna_Magdalena_Bach.jpg

Wow... in this pic, what's with the (apparent?) horned & bearded
satyr under the table with a paw on Anna Magdalena's knee?

> alike as she had dedicated the corresponding "squiggles" to him
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Anna-magdalena-
bach-noteboo.jpg ...

🔗Andreas Sparschuh <a_sparschuh@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jack" <gvr.jack@...> wrote:
>
>>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Anna_Magdalena_Bach.jpg
>
> Wow... in this pic, what's with the (apparent?) horned & bearded
> satyr under the table with a paw on Anna Magdalena's knee?
>
Appearently in that pic she got inspiration from the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyr
when performing her improvisation on the clavichord,
while her husband J.S. listens to her prick-eared
and writes down the score (attend the two inkpots)
while the pair in the background dances an m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuet_step

May be, that old satyr guy
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bild:Satyr_playing_flute_Louvre_MR187.jpg&filetimestamp=20070511170850
still plays Anna-Magdalena's song
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Satyr_sitting_in_tree_and_playing_pipes_%C2%B7_HHWIV374.svg
in the moonshine?

bye
A.S.

🔗John Garside <garsidejl@...>

Re. the extract from the woodcut/engraving (this is a small part of a
bigger picture, for those who don't know the original). Amazing! What
utter tripe. It is only wild speculation that the engraving represents
Bach and Anna Magadalena. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever
that it represents them. Somehow Bach notating a tune of Anna's making
doesn't quite ring true. IMHO.

The squiggle remains a fact. Its strange (for Bach) even unevenness
remains a mystery. Its very existence calls for an explanation because
of that asymmetry. Since he was reported not to have liked the dry
mathematics of tuning theory, it just could possibly be his
explanation, to the examining board for the job, of how he turned the
tuning pegs on his harpsichord. Or not.

Since the proof of the pudding, they say, is in the eating, does a
harpsichord tuned in the way Mr Lehman proposes sound reasonable or
not? If it does then it could be (note "could" be) a plausible
explanation, whoever first noticed the Snörkel. It seems that
several/many musicians think that it does, however well or poorly they
express themselves upon paper. Which surely isn't the issue.

All the rest is merely noise from those with an axe to grind IMO, the
fundamental issue is whether the explanation of the squiggle leads to
a satisfactory tuning. From what I've heard, it does. Was it what Bach
used? We'll likely never know. Is it a reasonable hypothesis?

Best regards,
JohnG.

🔗Brad Lehman <bpl@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Andreas Sparschuh" <a_sparschuh@...>
wrote:
>
> The Bach scholar [Peter Williams] speculates in his book
> 'J.S. Bach - A Life in Music' Cambridge Univ. Press 2007
>
> Review:
> http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521533744

That review is of a different, older, book by Williams. His 2007
book grew out of that one.

>
> German tramslation: ISBN 978-3-940731-08-1
> on p.481 , chap. 8 (Tunings and Temperaments) by guessing:
> "...hat vielleicht sie ( his wife: Anna Magdalena)
> und nicht der Komonist die Girlande des WTC hinzugefügt?"

My response to the Williams 2007 book has been posted here for half a
year already:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/bachtemps.html#williams

In his English-language original, Williams (in his bibliography and
his remarks) makes it clear that he never engaged anything past the
first printed section of that article he's criticizing. Therefore,
he missed more than half of the argument he's trying to refute. (In
short: he's arguing in the 2007 book against a published piece he
didn't trouble to understand first, and probably didn't even finish
reading....) That's an inexcusable misstep by a scholar of
Williams's customary thoroughness and open-mindedness. Has he
corrected that problem of omission in the newer German translation of
the book?

Brad Lehman

🔗Andreas Sparschuh <a_sparschuh@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Lehman" <bpl@...> wrote:

> In his English-language original, Williams (in his bibliography and
> his remarks) makes it clear that he never engaged anything past the
> first printed section of that article he's criticizing. Therefore,
> he missed more than half of the argument he's trying to refute. (In
> short: he's arguing in the 2007 book against a published piece he
> didn't trouble to understand first, and probably didn't even finish
> reading....) That's an inexcusable misstep by a scholar of
> Williams's customary thoroughness and open-mindedness. Has he
> corrected that problem of omission in the newer German translation
> of
> the book?

Sorry Brad,

Sadly, as far as I do know at the moment:
by no means Williams hasn't done so, not yet.

http://www.osburgverlag.com/img/waschzettel/titelinfo_williams_bach_leben_musik.pdf
http://www.seite-4.com/page.php?modul=Article&op=read&nid=2000&rub=18
"Wissenschaftliche Beratung: Gunther Morche, Heidelberg"
'Scientifc advise: G. Morche, Heidelberg'

But already in 2005 I made that local scholar
G. Morche aware of your's
famous 'web-only' supplement:
http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/data/33/1/3/DC1/2
especially about yours "Data-chart" there on p.45

Squiggly quest:
http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~tdent/
"Here is Mark Lindley in Munich investigating
Johann Christian Bach's :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christian_Bach
xylophone temperament.
(Quest for Brad:)
Can you assist him by explaining the musical significance of the colours?
http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~tdent/xylophone.jpg

Or means byond of that,
that it might be even the tuning of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Q._Bach
"... P. D. Q. Bach having "the originality of Johann Christian, the
arrogance of Carl Philipp Emanuel, and the obscurity of Johann
Christoph Friedrich." The most distinguishing feature of P. D. Q.
Bach's music, in the words of Schickele, is "manic plagiarism".

P. D. Q. Bach seldom wrote original tunes; (or temperaments?)
for the most part he stole melodies from other composers and
rearranged them in often funny ways."

Quest:
May be
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schickele
simply had forgotten to mention in his pages on
http://www.schickele.com/
that the drawing was if anything but that
P.D.Q. himself who penned down the
doodle on his fahthers WTC autograph?

Conclusion:
Hence you may perform
at least the works of P.D.Q. in any
presumed tuning based on that scrawl,
well with an absolute clear concisence.

much to my's regret, with deplorable repentance
bye
A.S.

🔗Jack <gvr.jack@...>

🔗Brad Lehman <bpl@...>

> Interesting fuel for the squiggle quest controversy here, yes:
> http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~tdent/repository.html

OK, let's discuss it. What do you think of my comments about those,
way back in the original article (May 2005 part 2, endnote 3)? "The
1715 edition of Ariadne musica has various spirals and flourishes on
both its title-page and interspersed among the pieces; one on the
tiele-page (attached to the name 'Fischer') is exactly the same as
Bach's, when turned upside-down. Friedrich Suppig's 1722 Labyrinthus
musicus and Calculus musicus also both have spirals on their
title-pages. I believe that these spirals are references to the view
of tuning as a progressive spiralling maze through the keys: the
Ariadne legend."

In the "Case Study" section of that same article (part of the files on
Oxford's web site) I continued that presentation, bringing in Bach's
"Kleines harmonisches Labyrinth" BWV 591, and Craig Wright's book _The
Maze and the Warrior_. Anybody read these, especially while listening
to my organ recording of BWV 591 in this temperament?

Brad Lehman

🔗Brad Lehman <bpl@...>

I wrote:
> In the "Case Study" section of that same article (part of the files
> on Oxford's web site) I continued that presentation, bringing in
> Bach's "Kleines harmonisches Labyrinth" BWV 591, and Craig Wright's
> book _The Maze and the Warrior_. Anybody read these, especially
> while listening to my organ recording of BWV 591 in this temperament?

Forgot to include the link to the recording!
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/cd1002.html

The recording also includes the complete "Ariadne musica"...because
Fischer's piece was a direct inspiration for Bach to compose the WTC,
and because (as I mentioned) it has some of those same spirals on its
title-page...and because there simply aren't many other recordings of
"Ariadne musica"...and because it's delightful music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne_musica

Brad Lehman

🔗Jack <gvr.jack@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Lehman" <bpl@...> wrote:
>
> > Interesting fuel for the squiggle quest controversy here, yes:
> > http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~tdent/repository.html
>
> OK, let's discuss it.

-- I neglected in the moment to consider that you (Brad) would have
been all over this material already. Thanks for pointing out your
previous commentary. I have read a lot of your larips.com material
but don't remember all the details.

I also went to Amazon and copped a free read of a few pages of
Wright's book Maze & Warrior, which I will probably order soon.

> What do you think of my comments about those,
> way back in the original article (May 2005 part 2, endnote 3)? "The
> 1715 edition of Ariadne musica has various spirals and flourishes on
> both its title-page and interspersed among the pieces; one on the
> tiele-page (attached to the name 'Fischer') is exactly the same as
> Bach's, when turned upside-down. Friedrich Suppig's 1722
> Labyrinthus musicus and Calculus musicus also both have spirals on
> their title-pages. I believe that these spirals are references to
> the view of tuning as a progressive spiralling maze through the
> keys: the Ariadne legend."

Thank you for bringing my attention to your comments on the drawings.
It wasn't clear to me so far that Bach's squiggle was not a unique
artifact (as an expression of a tuning procedure), or that there is a
class of these ornamental drawings that (may) be tuning diagrams, or
(even further afield for me) that there is a symbolic relationship to
the labyrinth which may have been part of the common language of the
time. I was only aware of Bach's diagram as a unique and handmade
artifact among a forest of (later) ornamental designs, and had
(previously) considered it to be a hand-drawn forerunner of those
swirls on the title pages of early 19th c. engraved editions (sorry).

The symbolic connection with the labyrinth is something I wouldn't
mind reading more about. I'm familiar with some of the symbolic
correspondences of the diatonic scale with the "orders of seven"
planets, colors, chakras, weekdays, metals, etc. (musical value =
nil? but interesting.) The labyrinth symbol for tuning is something
new to me. When did this association arise? Did it begin only in the
Baroque or are there medieval and renaissance examples?

If I kept my mouth shut (metaphorically) and my paws off the computer
keyboard, I wouldn't betray my ignorance but I might miss some more
opportunities to learn something. -- jack

> In the "Case Study" section of that same article (part of the files
> on Oxford's web site) I continued that presentation, bringing in
> Bach's "Kleines harmonisches Labyrinth" BWV 591, and Craig Wright's
> book _The Maze and the Warrior_. Anybody read these, especially
> while listening to my organ recording of BWV 591 in this
> temperament?
> Brad Lehman

Forgive me for saying so, but you would probably sell more CD's if
the Goshen College bookstore had an online shopping cart.
Also, I got a "404" on your WMA files at
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/samples.html
However, your U-tube videos are easily accessible.