The Well-Tempered Clavier
The Well-Tempered Clavichord (Das Wohltemperirte clavichord in the original old German spelling)[2], BWV 846–893, is
a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. He first gave the title to a book of [[prelude
(music)|preludes]] and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, dated
1722, composed "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already
skilled in this study." Bach later compiled a second book of the same kind, dated 1742, but titled it only "Twenty-four
Preludes and Fugues." The two works are now usually considered to comprise the Well-Tempered clavichord and are referred to
respectively as Books I and II. The Well-Tempered clavichord is generally regarded as one of the most influential works in
the history of Western Classical Music.
Composition history
The first book was compiled during Bach's appointment in Köthen; the second book followed it 22 years later while he was in
Leipzig. Both were widely circulated in manuscript, but printed copies were not made until 1801, by three publishers
almost simultaneously in Bonn, Leipzig and Zurich
[3]. Bach's style went out of favour in the time around his death, and most music in the early [[classical period
(music)|Classical period]] had neither contrapuntal complexity nor a great variety of keys. But with the maturing of the
Classical style in the 1770s the Well-Tempered clavichord began to influence the course of musical history, with [[Joseph
Haydn|Haydn]] and Mozart studying the work closely.
Each book contains twenty-four pairs of preludes and fugues. The first pair is in C major, the second in C minor, the
third in C-sharp major, the fourth in C-sharp minor, and so on. The rising chromatic pattern
continues until every key has been represented, finishing with a B-minor fugue.
Bach recycled some of the preludes and fugues from earlier sources: the 1720 [[Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann
Bach]], for instance, contains versions of eleven of the preludes. The C-sharp major prelude and fugue in book one was
originally in C major - Bach added a key signature of seven sharps and adjusted some [[Accidental
(music)|accidentals]] to convert it to the required key. The far-reaching influence of Bach's music is evident in that the fugue
subject in Mozart's Fantasy and Fugue in C Major K. 394 is isomorphic to that of the A-flat major
Fugue in Book I of the Well-Tempered clavichord. This pattern is found also in the C-Major fugue subject of Book II. Another
similar theme is the third movement fugue subject in the Concerto for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1061.
Bach's title suggests that he had written for a (12-note) well-tempered tuning system in which all keys
sounded in tune (also known as "circular temperament"). The opposing system in Bach's day was meantone temperament in which
keys with many accidentals sound out of tune. (See also musical tuning). It is sometimes assumed that
Bach intended equal temperament, the standard modern keyboard tuning which became popular after Bach's death, but modern
scholars suggest instead a form of well temperament. There is debate whether Bach meant a range of similar temperaments,
perhaps even altered slightly in practice from piece to piece, or a single specific "well-tempered" solution for all purposes.
Precursors
Although the Well-Tempered clavichord was the first collection of fully-worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas
had occurred earlier. Before the advent of modern tonality in the late 17th century, numerous composers produced collections of
pieces in all eight modes: Johann Pachelbel's magnificat fugues (composed 1695–1706), [[Georg
Muffat]]'s Apparatus Musico-organisticus of 1690 and Johannes Speth's Ars magna of 1693 are but a few examples.
Furthermore, some two hundred years before Bach's time, equal temperament was realized on plucked string instruments, such as the
lute and the theorbo, resulting in several collections of pieces in all keys (although the music was not yet tonal in the modern
sense of the word):
- a cycle of 24 passamezzo–saltarello pairs (1567) by Giacomo Gorzanis (c.1520–c.1577)[4]
- 24 groups of dances, "clearly related to 12 major and 12 minor keys" (1584) by Vincenzo Galilei
(c.1528–1591)[5]
- 30 preludes for 12-course lute or theorbo by John Wilson (1595–1674)[6][7]
One of the earliest keyboard composers to realize a collection of organ pieces in successive keys was Daniel Croner
(1656–1740), who compiled one such cycle of preludes in 1682.[8][9] His
contemporary Johann Heinrich Kittel (1652–1682) also composed a cycle of 12 organ preludes in successive
keys.[10]
Ariadne musica neo-organoedum, by J.C.F. Fischer (died 1746) was
published in 1702 and reissued 1715. It is a set of 20 prelude-fugue pairs in ten major and nine minor keys and the
Phrygian mode, plus five chorale-based ricercars. Bach knew the collection and borrowed some of the themes from
Fischer for Well-Tempered clavichord.[11] Other contemporary works include the treatise Exemplarische Organisten-Probe (1719) by [[Johann
Mattheson]] (1681–1764), which included 48 figured bass exercises in all keys,[12] Partien
auf das clavichord (1718) by Christoph Graupner (1683–1760) with eight suites in successive keys,[13] and Friedrich Suppig's Fantasia from Labyrinthus Musicus (1722), a long and formulaic sectional
composition ranging through all 24 keys which was intended for an enharmonic keyboard with 31 notes per octave and pure
major thirds.[14][12] Finally, a lost collection by Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706), Fugen und Praeambuln über die gewöhnlichsten Tonos
figuratos (announced 1704), may have included prelude-fugue pairs in all keys or modes.[15]
Bach's example inspired numerous composers of the 19th century, however, in his own time no similar collections were published,
except one by Johann Christian Schickhardt (1681–1762), whose Op. 30 L'alphabet de la musique, contained 24 sonatas
for recorder/flute/violin, in all keys.[16]
Musical style and content
Musically, the structural regularities of the Well-Tempered clavichord encompass an extraordinarily wide range of styles,
more so than most pieces in the literature. The Preludes are formally free, although many individual numbers exhibit typical Baroque melodic forms, often coupled to an
extended free coda (e.g. Book I preludes in C minor, D Major, and B-flat major).
Each fugue is marked with the number of voices, from two to five. Most are three- and four-voiced fugues. The fugues employ a
full range of contrapuntal devices (fugal exposition, thematic inversion, stretto, etc), but are generally more compact than
Bach's fugues for organ.
The best-known piece from either book is the first prelude of Book I, a simple progression of arpeggiated chords.
The technical simplicity of this C Major prelude has made it one of the most commonly studied piano pieces for students
completing their introductory training. This prelude also served as the basis for the Ave Maria of
Later significance and influence
Although the Well-Tempered clavichord was not the first pantonal (using all keys) composition, it was by far the most
influential. Beethoven, who made remote modulations central to his music, was heavily influenced by the
Well-Tempered clavichord, since performing it in concerts in his youth was part of his star attraction and reputation. The
WTC (Well-Tempered clavichord) does not include very remote modulations but instead demonstrates the ability of a single
instrument in tempered tuning to play in all 24 keys without having to be tuned to new fundamentals. Further reaching modulations
to remote harmonic regions were mostly associated with later Romantic and post-Romantic music, ultimately
leading to the functional extension in jazz harmony. The atonal system of the 20th century, although still
taking the 12-tone chromatic scale (that Bach used) as a foundation, effectively did away with musical keys altogether.
In addition to its use of all keys, the Well-Tempered clavichord was unusual in the very wide range of techniques and modes
of expression used by Bach in the fugues. No other composer had produced such vividly characterised and compelling pieces in
the fugal form, which was often regarded as a theoretical exercise. Many later composers studied Bach's work in an effort to
improve their own fugal writing: Verdi even found it useful for his last work, Falstaff. [citation needed]
The first complete recording of the Well-Tempered clavichord was made by Edwin Fischer between 1933 and 1936.
Intended tuning
During much of the 20th century it was assumed that Bach wanted equal temperament, which had been described by theorists and
musicians for at least a century before Bach's birth. However, research has continued into various unequal systems contemporary
with Bach's career. Accounts of Bach's own tuning practice are few and inexact. The two most cited sources are [[Johann Nikolaus
Forkel|Forkel]], Bach's first biographer, and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, who received information from Bach's
sons and pupils, and Johann Kirnberger, one of those pupils.
Forkel reports that Bach tuned his own harpsichords and clavichords and found other people's
tunings unsatisfactory; his own allowed him to play in all keys and to modulate into distant keys almost without the listeners
noticing it. Marpurg and Kirnberger, in the course of a heated debate, appear to agree that Bach required all the major thirds to
be sharper than pure—which is in any case virtually a prerequisite for any temperament to be good in all keys.
Johann Georg Neidhardt, writing in 1724 and 1732, described a range of unequal and near-equal temperaments (as well as
equal temperament itself), which can be successfully used to perform some of Bach's music, and were later praised by some of
Bach's pupils and associates. J.S. Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach himself published a rather vague tuning method which
was close to but still not equal temperament: having only "most of" the fifths tempered, without saying
which ones or by how much.
Since 1950 there have been many other proposals and many performances of the work in different, unequal tunings; some derived
from historical sources, some by modern authors:
- Herbert Anton Kellner argued from the mid-1970s until his death that esoteric considerations such as the pattern of Bach's
signet ring, numerology, and more could be used to determine the correct temperament. His result is somewhat similar to
Werckmeister's most familiar "correct" temperament. Kellner's temperament, with seven pure fifths
and five 1/5 comma fifths, has been widely adopted worldwide for the tuning of organs. It is especially
effective as a moderate solution to play 17th century music, shying away from tonalities that have more than two flats.
- John Barnes analyzed the Well-Tempered clavichord's major-key preludes statistically, observing that some major thirds are
used more often than others. His results were broadly in agreement with Kellner's and Werckmeister's patterns. His own proposed
temperament from that study is a 1/6 comma variant of both Kellner (1/5) and Werckmeister (1/4), with the same general pattern
tempering the naturals, and concluding with a tempered fifth B-F#.
- Mark Lindley, in his long career as an expert researcher of historical temperaments, has written several surveys of
temperament styles in the German Baroque tradition. In his publications he has recommended and
devised many patterns close to those of Neidhardt, with subtler gradations of interval size. Since a 1985 article where he
addressed some issues in the Well-Tempered clavichord, Lindley's theories have focused more on Bach's organ music than the
harpsichord or clavichord works.
Title page tuning interpretations
There has been a recent series of proposals of temperaments derived in a variety of ways from the
handwritten pattern of apparently ornamental loops (above) on Bach's 1722 title page.
Whatever their provenances, these schemes all promote the existence of subtly different musical characters in different [[key
(music)|keys]], due to the sizes of their intervals. However, they disagree as to what key receives what
character.
Many musicologists believe it is insufficiently proven that Bach's looped drawing signifies anything reliable about a tuning
method. Bach may have tuned differently per occasion, or per composition, throughout his career.
- Andreas Sparschuh, in the course of studying German Baroque organ tunings, assigned mathematical and acoustic meaning to the
loops. Each loop, he argued, represents a fifth in the sequence for tuning the keyboard, starting from A. From this Sparschuh
devised a recursive tuning algorithm resembling the Collatz Conjecture in mathematics, subtracting one beat per second each
time Bach's diagram has a non-empty loop. In 2006 he has retracted his 1998 proposal based on A=420 Hz, and replaced it with
another at A=410.
- Michael Zapf in 2001 reinterpreted the loops as indicating the rate of beating of different fifths in
a given range of the keyboard in terms of seconds-per-beat, with the tuning now starting on C.
- John Charles Francis in 2004 performed a mathematical analysis of the loops using Mathematica under the assumption of
beats per second. In 2004, he also distributed several temperaments derived from BWV 924. Details are available at the author's
web site.
- Bradley Lehman in 2004 proposed a 1/6 and 1/12 comma layout derived from Bach's loops, which he published in 2005 in
articles of three music journals. Reaction to this work has been both vigorous and mixed: with other writers producing further
speculative schemes or variants.
- Martyn Owen, in 2008 proposed[citation needed] that, since the "looping motif" is in all probability[[Category:Articles with unsourced statements from July
2008]][citation needed] the first mark made on the title page, that it was either created as an abstract artistic representation of the author's
feelings toward each key, or was simply meant for ornament.
Media
References
- ^ Title page translated
- ^ In the German of Bach's time the "clavichord" was a generic name meaning "keyboard instrument," most typically the harpsichord or clavichord — but not excluding the organ, either. Bach's clavichord compositions are now usually played on the piano or harpsichord. The modern German spelling is Das Wohltemperierte Klavier.
- ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3870/is_200607/ai_n16522881] Broderip, Wilkinson and the first English edition of the '48'
- ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ [http://diapason.xentonic.org/dp/dp049.html The Diapason Press - General Series: John Wilson, "Thirty Preludes" in all (24) keys for lute]
- ^ John H. Baron. A 17th-Century Keyboard Tablature in Brasov, JAMS, xx (1967), pp. 279–85.
- ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ a b Karl Geiringer. The Bach Family: Seven Generations of Creative Genius, pp. 268–9. Oxford University Press, 1954.
- ^ Oswald Bill, Christoph Grosspietsch. Christoph Graupner: Thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke. Carus, 2005. ISBN 389948066X
- ^ Fredrich Suppig: Labyrinthus musicus, Calculus musicus, facsimile of the manuscripts. Tuning and Temperament Library, Volume 3, edited by Rudolf Rasch. Diapason Press, Utrecht, 1990.
- ^ Jean M. Perreault. The Thematic Catalogue of the Musical Works of Johann Pachelbel, p. 84. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md. 2004. ISBN 0-8108-4970-4.
- ^ Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help)
Bibliography
- Kirkpatrick, Ralph. Interpreting Bach's Well-Tempered clavichord: A Performer's Discourse of Method (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1987). ISBN 0-300-03893-3.
- Ledbetter, David. Bach's Well-Tempered clavichord: The 48 Preludes and Fugues (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
ISBN 0-300-09707-7.
See also
- Complete list of works
included in the Well-Tempered clavichord listed by BWV.
External links
Sheet music
- Free scores by Well-Tempered clavichord, Book 1 pt.1 at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Fugues of the Well-Tempered clavichord: Interactive scores calibrated to recordings by
David Korevaar and analysis by Tim Smith.
- [http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/make-table.cgi?collection=bachwtk&preview=1 Scores of the Well-Tempered clavichord
through the Mutopia Project.]
Websites
by Siglind Bruhn. Full text of the 1951 book.
- Animated visualizations of the music by Dr. Tim Smith of Northern Arizona University
- Blog post about Juan Downey's Bachdisc, with video.(in Spanish)
- Music of Sacred Temperament
Proposed 'Bach' tunings derived from the title page
- How tuned Bach? - Discussion group
- Keyboard Tuning of Johann Sebastian Bach - interpreted by John Charles Francis
- Larips.com - "Bach" tuning resources - interpreted by Bradley Lehman
- Temperament derived from the 1722 title page (1999) - interpreted by Andreas
Sparschuh (in German)
- Temperament derived from the 1722 title page (2007) - interpreted by Graziano Interbartolo(in
Italian)