© Bradley Lehman, 2005-8, all rights reserved.
All musical/historical analysis here on the LaripS.com web site is the personal opinion of the author, as a researcher of historical temperaments and a performer of Bach's music.
Johann Sebastian Bach's tuning
I believe that Johann Sebastian Bach notated a specific method of keyboard tuning.
He did not express it in our normally-expected formats of theory, or numbers, but rather
drew a diagram for a practical hands-on sequence.
The resulting temperament has been absent from our history books: lost under layers of
assumptions and habits that have led away from it.
I believe its particular sound, as an integrated part of musical practice, has profound implications for all of Bach's instrumental and vocal music that uses keyboards: either with written-out parts or in the basso continuo. Bach obviously knew how to set up his keyboards appropriately before writing his music for them. The aim is to restore the specific intonation scheme of his everyday keyboard tuning, the sound relationships he expected to hear in his melodies and harmonies, as they may have influenced his creative imagination. By hearing how these musical elements work through composition and improvisation, we gain new clues into the interpretation of Bach's music: affecting at least the areas of articulation, phrasing, dynamics, timing, intensity, and drama. The tensions and resolutions within the music suggest fresh ideas in performance, both through intuitive reactions and through close analysis. This "LaripS.com" web site clarifies and explains the material, both through theory and practice. It provides various introductions to this work, for different levels of readers' interest. It serves as an archive of ideas as this temperament is used and discussed among musicians, researchers, and enthusiasts. ArticlesMy main scholarly article proposing this reading of the evidence is published in the February and May 2005 issues of Early Music. That article, "Bach's extraordinary temperament: our Rosetta Stone", describes the historical context and provides musical and mathematical analysis. [Outline, and free download of its seven PDF files from Oxford University Press]A supplementary article "The 'Bach temperament' and the clavichord" is available in the November 2005 issue of Clavichord International. It contains further discussion of practical issues: some specifically for clavichord, some more generally in analysis of Bach's keyboard music, scale structure, enharmonic considerations, and by-ear tuning instructions. The compositions presented include BWV 772-801, 802, 808, 849, 887, 988, 1079, and 1080. [Outline] [Full text] A November 2005 essay "The Tuning" gives a two-page summary of the temperament and its musical character. [Full text] It is printed in the booklets of Peter Watchorn's CDs. The 2006 article "Bach's Art of Temperament" for BBC Music Magazine further explains this temperament from several additional practical angles. [Full text] The BBC's version was shortened and given the title "In Good Temper". Other articles about this temperament are listed here. There is also a page of my responses to other people's articles and books where they present their agreements or disagreements with this temperament. Quick start!What might a beginner to this material read first, most productively? Open the streaming audio page and start up some music in the background. Then, start reading either the "Bach's art of temperament" article or the informal lecture. Also, take a look at the videos showing a harpsichord being tuned and played. Enjoy!Audio samples and video demonstrationsThere are pages of recorded musical examples and 20-minute playlists of streaming audio, with performances by Bradley Lehman on harpsichords and pipe organs.....New! Additional sample recordings are available variously on Last.fm, on iLike, and Facebook as featured excerpts from LaripS 1002 (organ) and LaripS 1003 (harpsichord and organ). New! More than a dozen recordings by other musicians using this "Bach/Lehman 1722" temperament: on harpsichords, fortepianos, pipe organs, digital organs, synthesizers, and more.... A survey of the temperament's use in public performances and recordings by hundreds of musicians, and built into pipe organs and other instruments.... The LaripS Recordings label.... There is a growing collection of video demonstrations, showing how to tune harpsichords by ear in this and several related temperaments. Other resourcesIntroductory lecture at an informal level.... (How to explain temperament, and why it matters, to teenagers!)
Dozens of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), answered.... The historical and practical assumptions within my research.... Several sets of instructions for tuning instruments by ear, or with electronic devices.... Several additional temperaments to set by ear: see especially my ordinary temperament to play 17th century German music ("Bonus 5" on that page).... A historical survey of other "Bach" temperaments as hypothetical reconstructions.... Additional resources for music theory, practice, and history....
All LaripS.com contents © Bradley Lehman, 2005
Improved graphics supplied by Joakim Bang Larsen (Norway), 5-Apr-05; thank you!  |
* Introduction - Features - Lecture - Background - Videos v Articles v FAQ v Practice v Theory v History v Etc v Recordings
|
