source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 14:15:51 -0800 Subject: RE: Bach's Tuning on Christmas From: Johnny Reinhard This is a report on my recent Microtonal Bach radio show on WKCR in New York on Christmas Day. In addition to the usual broadcasts of Armin Shoof playing Bach in Werckmeister III (using the same organ used by Dietrich Buxtehude); Ton Koopman's Brandenburg recordings in WIII (Erato 751342) with his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; Fantasias in WIII by Igor Kipnis on both harpsichord and clavichord; there were 2 notable additions. Flutist Andrew Bolotowsky demonstrated on the A minor Prelude the difference between 12ET playing of the opening movement versus WIII tuning (effected by the precise placement of tape over parts of open tone holes, the bottom hole, and alternate fingerings. Also popular with listeners was a discussion of Pablo Casals' intuitive microtonality. In the 1928 remastered CD performance of the C minor Cello Suite, Casals expresses each note under in pitch to what it would be in archetypical 12ET. In fact, every note of both C minor and C major is pitched below ideal 12ET placement. In the only other minor key Suite - D minor -which has its minor third sharper than ideal 12ET, Casals played the opening motif with a sharpened third. I understand Casals wrote about his ideas on expressive intonation and I am quite curious to learn more. However, it is highly unlikely that Casals had any knowledge of how to track specific keys in Werckmeister III. Translation of the Werckmeister treatise of 1691 remains available only in archaic Thuringian German (and in an unpublished English traslation by Oberlin undergrad Elizabeth Hehr). The clear implication is that Bach's music signaled to Casals an expressive coloring for these 2 Suites (mainly prominent in the first movement of each), the only minor keys used in the set of 6. What an intuition! Johnny Reinhard 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@ios.com p.s. to tune Werckmeister III- tune a quarter-comma flat fifth up from a F so that the "perfect" fifth is a C at roughly 696 cents; continue a 696 cents fifth above that to G; Continue again 696 cents to D; Now 3/2 perfect fifths to A and then to E and then to B; 696 cents to F#; and the remainder of fifths 3/2 pure until returning to F. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 00:03 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA00808; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 00:06:35 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA00806 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id PAA01653; Fri, 3 Jan 1997 15:06:32 -0800 Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 15:06:32 -0800 Message-Id: <199701031804_MC1-E36-323E@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu