There are many "recreations of 'Bach's' temperament" out there. Lots of people have written reams of material "proving" that their own take is the correct one. Most of them are based on notions of "how Bach composed," essentially claiming that he "must" have wanted X interval at X point of X piece to be more or less "poignant" (and thus contain more or less beating) and similar arguments. Many were worked up purely from his music, in keeping with the writer's interpretation of how Bach "must have" wanted it to sound. The Lehman recreation is from an interpretation of that interesting "squiggle" at the top of the engraved plate for Bach's self-published WTC (it is a copper plate, engraved from manuscript presumably created by Bach's own hand). Lehman's is not the only interpretation of that squiggle, nor even the first. For anyone interested, go to Early Music (a quarterly journal published by Oxford Press). There were a couple articles in response to Lehman's articles, I think last summer, each with a different take. One of them proposed a completely different interpretation. Probably there have been further articles since then, as a further article by Mark Lindley was promised (I haven't checked recently). I'm sure there is also a lot of buzz on line in various discussion groups and blogs. BTW, Lehman's second article is filled with arguments about how his solution must be correct, based on where which intervals appear in what pieces. With so many people giving so much energy to this line of investigation, the truth will no doubt be completely obscured within the next century or two <G>. All this said, the Lehman interpretation seems to have a lot more traction than any other, and has swept through the early music community and beyond. So it's a good one to have stored in your user temperaments in case of need. As Chris has found, it is in demand even for piano. And it is a fairly mild one, maybe about as far beyond Broadwood's Best as Broadwood's Best is beyond Moore - a little farther along the spectrum. I think it is quite suitable for piano, for the right customer. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu On Mar 23, 2008, at 8:13 AM, Richard Brekne wrote: > Grin... great. Those two sets of offsets are miles apart from each > other. I dont know whether to grin or grimace. In anycase... its > potential ammo against that occasional pianist who just <<knows>> > the world is flat... if yers gets my meaning. > > Cheers > RicB > > > >Anyone care to clear this up for me ? > > > > Two different temperaments based on hypotheses > on what might have been utilized by JSB. > -- > Regards, > > Jon Page >
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