Recorded samples

Bach's schematic, as it appears on the page

LaripS.com, © 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.

LaripS 1002 and 1003 were released January 4th 2006. Both are in the Bach temperament, recorded at Goshen College (Indiana, USA). #1002 is a set of three solo organ recitals, on three CDs. #1003 has one hour of music on harpsichord, plus a 20-minute section of bonus tracks on organ.

LaripS 1001 "In Thee is Gladness" was released in January 2005. It is a program of music for organ and trumpet, performed in equal temperament on two organs in north Germany.

The following samples are all performed by Bradley Lehman. The format is WMA audio. (**)

Prelude in C major from Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" book 1, played on harpsichord. [LaripS 1003] (No sharps or flats in the key signature, but each available "black" note appears as the music progresses, against the background of all the "white" notes.)
Fugue in F# minor from Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" book 1, played on harpsichord. [LaripS 1003] (Three sharps in the signature, and many other sharps along the way. See also Laurence Dreyfus's analysis in Bach and the Patterns of Invention, 1996, pp 155-9.)
Sinfonia in G minor by Bach, played on harpsichord. [LaripS 1003] (Also known as a "three-part invention"....)
Little harmonic labyrinth, BWV 591 by Bach, starting in C major and going through all the keys. Played on organ. [LaripS 1002]
Duetto in F major, BWV 803 by Bach. Played on organ. [LaripS 1002] (ABA form, where the A section has no dissonances at all (!) and the B section is a minefield of chromaticism. See also David Yearsley's analysis in Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint, 2002; and my own analysis in the supplementary web file for "Bach's Extraordinary Temperament: Our Rosetta Stone" part 2.)
Fantasia in E-flat major by Pachelbel, played on organ. A toccata-like piece that wanders into uncommonly deep flats of Ab/Db/Gb/Cb. [Web sample only; see especially Peter Williams's mention of this piece in discussion of Bach's BWV 622, in The Organ Music of J S Bach 2nd edition, 2003.]
A lullaby in B major (five sharps), and then transposed to B-flat major (two flats) [informal videocam recordings to MP3] [The printed music]
Informal video (on YouTube) of WTC book 1 Prelude in C, from January 2005
Informal video (on YouTube) of a Buxtehude Sarabande, played first in A major and then in A-flat major
See also the videos page and the audio streaming page!

A direct comparison of equal temperament and the Bach temperament is available as a set of two video demonstrations on YouTube.

New! Four samples drawn from LaripS 1002 and 1003 are available on http://www.myspace.com/bradleylehman .

New! Additional samples are available on Last.fm: excerpts from all tracks, and some free downloads! [Harpsichord] [Organ disc 1] [Organ disc 2] [Organ disc 3] [Trumpet/organ duo (in equal temperament)]

New! Free harpsichord and organ samples on iLike and Facebook (selected from LaripS 1002 and 1003); streamed programs are also available here.

The Taylor & Boody Opus 41 organ (played in LaripS 1002) is part of the Goshen College Music Center, Goshen Indiana.

Some of my musical priorities and principles are described at my older essays "Decoro, sprezzatura, grazia" and "What does a musical performer think about?".

(**) I have used WMA sampling format because it gives a clearer and more accurate sound from the CDs, compared with MP3 files at the same rate and size.

A sample recording is available performed by Robert Hill. The music is Bach's three-part invention in G minor, ornamented/interpreted using the principles in the essay The Craft of Musical Communication. It was recorded in a Swiss radio broadcast concert, May 2004, soon after I presented this Bach tuning to Dr Hill for his exploration. This performance on fortepiano is hosted at the "Institute for Musical Perception" web site by Keith Hill and Marianne Ploger, authors of that essay.

Six other samples drawn from LaripS 1002 and 1003 are hosted at Oxford University Press's web site, as listening examples for the article "Bach's extraordinary temperament: our Rosetta Stone". See the outline page for details and that link.

Recorded samples

See also: