# Just sharing something in regards to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier



## ibrahim (Apr 29, 2017)

I have found that listening to this work is far more satisfying when the preludes and fugues are separated -- basically listening to it on "shuffle" play on Spotify. 

One reason is that you can come to see it as 96 pieces of music rather than 48 preludes/fugues. The connections between the preludes and fugues is often arbitrary aside the key. Many of the fugues therefore are more enjoyable when freed from expectations set by the prelude, and the preludes are therefore more enjoyable for being themselves rather than promising anything. 

Another reason is listening to it in or order every time (I've found) is BORING, but when the next piece is a surprise -- no boredom.

Anyway I'm a convert to this work!!!!!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

If that's the way you like it.....

As for the contention that the connections between prelude and fugue are often arbitrary, Bach's the guy that created those connections. I'll trust in Bach.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I agree that some of the preludes seem unmatched to the following fugues in any musical sense I can discern. Some of the mismatches are tremendous! So I kind of like the shuffle approach, must try it out.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=40429.0
Glenn Gould also famously stated that "a lot of the fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier are better off without their preludes, and vice versa."

there are ones with fugues I like better than the associated preludes, such as the G minor from Book 2,
and ones with preludes better than the fugues, such as the B flat minor from Book 1,

One thing I like to add, I think they sound a lot better on the harpsichord than on piano
I don't like how pianists today play them on the piano soft and slow to mimic the sound of the 18th century keyboard, making it "sound like a baroque angel." (in Malcolm Bilson's words) 



Not just WTC, most 18th century keyboard music sounds awkward on the modern piano.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

As long as we're "shuffling along", why not incorporate a multi-disc player (I happen to have a NAD 5-disc player) and load it with all four discs of _Das wohltemperierte Klavier_ and then add in a disc of the Shostakovich preludes and fugues, or perhaps a disc of Chopin or Debussy preludes … or, what the heck, Eubie Blake's musical _Shuffle Along_. It all sounds good to me!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I guess he wrote for each key because he thought that each key had its own character, it’s own “feel”, so that could be part of the connection between preludes and fugues. I’m not sure about this, maybe he just wanted to create some exercises for students to practise difficult key signatures. 

And I haven’t got a clue why he felt the need to write a second book.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Colin Tilney's cycle is organized by the circle of fifths. Book I goes up (C->G etc.); book II goes down (C ->F etc.). Any others like that?

I believe his explanation was that he didn't used equal temperament, but something that maintained some character for different keys.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> I believe his explanation was that he didn't used equal temperament, but something that maintained some character for different keys.


If that's right, does it follow that pieces in the same key should have the same character -- whether in Book 1 or Book 2?


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## Jhawn55 (Nov 28, 2018)

I do like to hear/play Bach on the piano, but I love to hear Bach on harpsichord. I'm open to listening to " shuffled" Bach. I much prefer listening to the fugues, but I am a nut about fugues and think they stand alone beautifully. When I am analyzing, I want the preludes in front of me also. Just so much to learn from Bach...


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I've never been convinced that the tuning was anything other than equal temperament. If not, one would be required to tune the instrument up a half-step after each prelude and fugue to its next key. I think that's exactly what Bach was trying to avoid: the tedium and inconvenience of that necessity. Try tuning a keyboard instrument or a piano: it's a pain in the *** and time-consuming... I also think that the WTC was meant to be instructional more than as a concert piece, though of course it can be performed and has been, but primarily it was to create a comfortable familiarity of each key. With equal temperament, one would not be required to play the prelude and fugues in order; one could do them in any order without retuning the instrument... Bach didn't invent the equal temperament; it had been created by others. But he took it to another level and I think it really moved music forward harmonically. It liberated it harmonically by having a fixed tuning and not having to perform the music in related keys, such as related to the cycle of fifths, which I don't believe he intended at all. The most dramatic demonstration of the equal temperament is by going up by half-steps, which I believe he clearly intended and was making a point. By using the equal system one could freely change or modulate from one key to another after developing an excellence of facility in each one.

"Each Prelude is followed by a Fugue in the same key. In each book the first Prelude and Fugue is in C major, followed by a Prelude and Fugue in its parallel minor key (C minor). Then all keys, each major key followed by its parallel minor key, are followed through, each time moving up a halftone: C → C♯ → D → E♭ → E → F → F♯ → ... ending with ... → B♭ → B."

According to Bach himself, the WTC was written "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of _learning_, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this _study_."

WTC by Sviatoslav Richter (on piano)...


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


> I've never been convinced that the tuning was anything other than the equal temperament.


It was other. All keys can be viable without being identical in relative tuning.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> I've never been convinced that the tuning was anything other than the equal temperament.


What? No. I'm sorry, but that is completely ignorant. There is no mystery, and no one need convince anyone of anything. It is literally called "The Well-Tempered Clavier"....Bach can't convince you?!

Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier to demonstrate the musical possibilities of well temperament. Versus equal temperament. He was arguing against equal temperament, and for well tempered tuning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament

Your other contention that the instrument would have to be tuned after each prelude and fugue is also a completely wrongheaded misunderstanding of what well-tempered tuning is. It is a system of tuning, (just like equal temperament is, but in a different way), that is designed to avoid exactly that. A system that makes it possible to play in all the keys.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> If that's right, does it follow that pieces in the same key should have the same character -- whether in Book 1 or Book 2?


Not necessarily. If a fugue in Book I is largo and the fugue in the same key is Book II is prestissimo, they are not going to have the same character. It may be Bach showing what can be done withing a particular temperament.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but by using the circle of fifths the sound should go slowly "out of tune."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but by using the circle of fifths the sound should go slowly "out of tune."


Have a listen to a recording on an instrument which hasn't be tuned equally, try Watchorn or Egarr on harpsichord or maybe Hans Georg Schaeffer or Cedric Pescia if you want a piano. I'd like to know if you think the harmonies are problematic.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> Not necessarily. If a fugue in Book I is largo and the fugue in the same key is Book II is prestissimo, they are not going to have the same character. It may be Bach showing what can be done withing a particular temperament.


There's very little by way of tempo indications in WTC, if anything. But, just to move the thinking a bit deeper, let me rephrase my question. If what you're saying is right, does it follow that pieces in the same key _taken at the same tempo_ should have the same character -- whether in Book 1 or Book 2?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

lextune said:


> What? No. I'm sorry, but that is completely ignorant. There is no mystery, and no one need convince anyone of anything. It is literally called "The Well-Tempered Clavier"....Bach can't convince you?!
> 
> Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier to demonstrate the musical possibilities of well temperament. Versus equal temperament. He was arguing against equal temperament, and for well tempered tuning.
> 
> ...


But this raises two questions.
1. If there existed a tuning system superior to equal-temperament for a stringed keyboard instrument in Bach's time, why did it become obsolete and eventually lost?
2. How is it 'mathematically possible' to tune a stringed keyboard so that it sounds evenly tuned in all keys without using equal-temperament? 




What Bach meant by "well-temperament" might just be the same thing we know as today as "equal-temperament", we can't know for sure. Some people argue there actually did exist a better tuning system than equal-temperament called "well-temperament". Only theories and speculations. no definitive answer.

Others say that the fact that the pair in G sharp minor (#####) comes right after the pair in A flat major (bbbb) essentially proves Bach considered considered enharmonic keys such as A flat minor (bbbbbbb) and G sharp minor (#####) essentially the same in a stringed keyboard instrument, in composing the WTC.
and as far as I know, this is mathematically possible only in equal-temperament.
Much in the same way Scriabin's Etude Op.8 No.12 in D sharp minor is regarded in some quarters as Etude Op.8 No.12 in E flat minor:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

On the benefits and compromises inherent with different tuning temperaments... The use of the Just system requires that a tuning be done for each scale (key), and I do not believe that Bach had that in mind with the WTC. That would require at least 12 tunings, and the Preludes and Fugues aren't that long. On the other hand, the Equal temperament will sound essentially good in any key without having to tune the instrument differently after each Prelude and Fugue. There are a number of different tuning systems other than the Equal.

http://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Well-temperament is not the same as just intonation. Johnny Reinhard thinks the Werckmeister III was what J.S. Bach used for his compositions. He wrote a book called "Bach and Tuning."

from AFMM EARLY liner notes
_"Evidence has been mounting that Johann Sebastian composed all his works in Andreas Werckmeister's preferred chromatic temperament III tuning (published in 1681 throughout Germany). This temperament served as the standard organ temperament in all the major Bach cities. [...] Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I and II, is as clear a microtonal masterpiece as can be imagined. [...] The tuning now called Werckmeister III was well established in J.S. Bach's homeland of Thuringia. In it, each key is intervallically different from the next. The more diatonic keys are the closest to "just" intonation (pure intervals) with the more chromatic keys down right Pythagorean (a tuning that foregoes pure thirds in favor of perfect fifths). There is good representation of various meantone tunings and a practical mirror of conventional 12-tone equal temperament."_


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> If there existed a tuning system superior to equal-temperament for a stringed keyboard instrument in Bach's time, why did it become obsolete and eventually lost?


No one said it was superior, just different. And it is not lost.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> On the other hand, the Equal temperament will sound essentially good in any key without having to tune the instrument differently after each Prelude and Fugue.


So will Well-tempered instruments.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Everyone please read "Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle" by Stuart Isacoff, and then get back to this thread.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> …..the Equal temperament will sound essentially good in any key..


Well, but the equal temperament is essentially out of tune in all keys.

Fortunately many listeners can't hear that, but it is a treat for those, who can.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Correct, it can be a bit over simplified, and said to be 'equally out-of-tune' in every key.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Have a listen to a recording on an instrument which hasn't be tuned equally, try Watchorn or Egarr on harpsichord or maybe Hans Georg Schaeffer or Cedric Pescia if you want a piano. I'd like to know if you think the harmonies are problematic.





Mandryka said:


> There's very little by way of tempo indications in WTC, if anything. But, just to move the thinking a bit deeper, let me rephrase my question. If what you're saying is right, does it follow that pieces in the same key _taken at the same tempo_ should have the same character -- whether in Book 1 or Book 2?


I'm not sure I would call any of the harmonies problematic. (I put "out of tune" in quotes for a reason.) Tilney's explanation for using a non-equal tuning was to give the different keys individual colors. I'll try to give it a listen to focus on the different keys.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> I'm not sure I would call any of the harmonies problematic.


So possibly Bach has avoided any wolf intervals, or the performers have made embellishments to deal with dissonances they don't want, or listeners have found a way to enjoy very crunchy harmonies.

But this isn't the only interesting issue for me. I'm interested in the hypothesis that Bach was exploring colour and affekt in each key -- in both books. And whether that colour and that suggestion of a feeling is lost if you play it in equal temperament.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Tilney's discusses his tuning in the liner notes:

He references the below article (couldn't find the whole thing on the net).

https://academic.oup.com/em/article-abstract/7/2/236/392921?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Kirkpatrick mentions the article as well.

https://books.google.com/books?id=X...e&q="ralph kirkpatrick" "john barnes"&f=false

I think there's a pretty good chance the NYPL might have it. I might also try my British Library card (if it's still valid).


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Apologies for the length!



> * Well temperament means a mathematical-acoustic and musical-practical organization of the tone system within the twelve steps of an octave, with the goal of impeccable performance in all tonalities, based on the natural-harmonic tone system [i.e., extended just intonation], while striving to keep the diatonic intervals as pure as possible.* This temperament acts, while tied to given pitch ratios, as a thriftily tempered smoothing and extension of the meantone, as unequally beating halftones and as equally beating [i.e., equal] temperament.
> 
> In most tuning systems used before 1700, one or more intervals on the twelve-note keyboard were so far from any pure interval that they were unusable in harmony and were called a "wolf interval". Until about 1650 the most common keyboard temperament was quarter-comma meantone, in which the fifths were narrowed to the extent that they were just usable, and would thereby produce justly tuned thirds. [clarification needed] The syntonic comma was distributed between four intervals, with most of the comma accommodated in the sol♯ to mi♭ diminished sixth, which expands to nearly a minor sixth. It is this interval that is usually called the "wolf", because it is so far out of consonance. The term "mean tone", the basis for meantone temperament, refers to the mathematical averaging [clarification needed] of thirds, in which the middle note (for example the D between C and E) is in the "mean" [clarification needed] position between the notes making the third. *Another example of this is equal temperament (which is actually eleventh-comma meantone (syntonic comma) or twelfth-comma meantone (pythagorean comma) if seen in the perspective as to how to divide the comma between the fifths).*
> 
> ...


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


> The question about tunings is raised in the WTC because Bach did not write the Well-tempered Clavier by modulating according to the cycle of fifths and staying in related keys. As an example, he goes up by a halftone to the key of C-sharp, which is full of sharps, as an unrelated key to C major in the previous major and minor preludes and fugues. For Bach to have used some form of a mean temperament, one would have expected him to write the WTC according to the cycle of fifths - and he didn't. Plus, the equal temperament fits into one of the definitions of a well-tempered scale as stated in the first paragraph. If it wasn't used, one would be tuning longer than playing each prelude and fugue, each to their respective scale every time the next one went up a halftone. So the matter of what Bach meant by the well-tempered scale is open to debate that includes the equal tempered scale in which one can freely modulate to any key without hesitation or inconvenience and go up a halftone to the next prelude and fugue without the wolf tones. Using a mean temperament scale, one would expect Bach to go from the key of C to the key of G instead of up a halftone to C sharp, with G being the next related key in the cycle of fifths-but it's clearly not how he arranged the preludes and fugues by key.


No retuning was required, so your argument is irrelevant. Haven't you read the responses above? The whole point of the system was making it possible to play in all keys without retuning!


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