source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 08:51:21 -0700 Subject: Bach's Tuning From: Johnny Reinhard To follow up on my last posting: Anyone who has ever been to Thuringia where the Bachs's stem from will notice that there is no "equal" anything to be seen. Architecture in the area suggests an aesthetic of well-temperament. Secondly, Andreas Werckmeister did not merely "list" well-temperaments, he focused on what we now call "Werckmeister III." This tuning was in practice long before it was catalogued by Mr. Werckmeister. Werckmeister I is simple just intonation and Werckmeister II is quarter-comma meantone. I own an unpublished English translation of Musicalische Temperatur (1691) made by Elizabeth Hehr and given to me by Mark Lindley. The bulk of his writing is on III - which displaces four quarter-comma flattened fifths to include C-G, G-D, D-A, and B-F# - leaving all other fiths pure (3/2). Contrastingly, Werckmeister IV, V, and VI only receive a page or two apiece. Thirdly, I believe that the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier was as evidenced by Barnes illustrative of key intervallic diversity. Though a second book would be moot if not to emphasize the homogeneity of 24 identical keys in contrast. A composer picked a key accordingly, some to mirror meantone preferences, some to mirror equal temperament realities. For eight years I have presented a Microtonal Bach radio show every Christmas Day for 4 hours on WKCR-FM Columbia University in New York City. It is part of a week-long all-Bach series of broadcasts. The music staples include: Ton Koopman's Brandenburg Concerti in Werckmeister III with the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra, various performances of Bach's early work The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue by Igor Kipnis and others (e.g. Eugenia Earle) in Werckmeister III, and the Coffee Cantata in quarter comma meantone, among others. There is a grand difference in this music...but it is subtle for many other listeners. For many others, they listen in every year, regularly. For example, The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor (which is the most consonant minor key in Werckmeister III) is much more "chromatic" in well-temperament. Its many diminished 7th chords which act as pivot chords for modulation contain different sizes of minor thirds, and so their inversions take on new meaning. And the fugue which is semitonal is striking with its big-small semitone alternations. Should we really disregard J.P. Kirnberger's assertion that to change the key of a composition into a distantly related key is to damage said piece? Keep in mind that Kirnberger did more to promote J.S. Bach than any of his kids. It is thanks to Bach's student Kirnberger that the world even has the Brandenburg Concerti. Yale University Press publishes his *Art of Strict Musical Composition*, designed to present J.S. Bach's essential theories, as well as his own. Manuel, once again, could you post this to the harpsichord list. Thank you. Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@styx.ios.com Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 17:59 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA18573; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 08:59:36 -0700 Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 08:59:36 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu