more on this temperament tangent

[Paul N. Bailey]

I think we do know exactly what keyboard temperament J.S. Bach was
advocating

I am not totally committed to any one temperament, but I do tune
Wohltemperirt/
Bach very frequently, to the delight many tuning clients.

Check out Dr. H.A. Kellner's websites:


> http://members.tripod.de/Herbert_Anton_Kellne     no "R"!!
>
> Preferably, as precaution, this should not be consulted without
> knowing the primary site http://ha.kellner.bei.t-online.de
>

                        Paul Bailey
                        Modesto CA


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Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 20:41:27 +0100
From: Richard Brekne <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
Subject: Re: more on this temperament tangent

Again, without the ability to actually ask Bach, we will never know for
sure. But my own personal take on this is that at  Bach was writing to
demonstrate movement through a non-restrictive keyboard temperament.

ET in its true sense didnt exist for the keyboard, at the very best some
crude attempt at transfering a temperament from monochords could have
resulted in a quasi ET. But thats not really the point... the point was
that the non restrictiveness nature of then new temperament ideas that
were moving in the direction of ET were then still new, and there was
much discussion about their use. Not so many years earlier a you could
get in serious trouble with the church for useing certain disonant
intervals mind you.... Bach was in favour of these non restrictive
temperaments, at least enough to embrace them in his writtings 

We are in a period of history where the transition from meantone
temperaments and just intonation shemes to the much less restricting
well temperaments was going on... a time when many new tone combinations
were taken into use.. its very difficult for us to put ourselves in the
footsteps of those peoples... their mindset was quite different then
ours in many many ways... and music was just one small but intregral
part of it all.

So Bach probably didnt write (in my opinion) for any particular
temperament in the sense I get from your question... more likely he was
writting in the new (at that time) genre of temperament thinking. 



Charles Neuman wrote:
> 
> At the risk of getting caught in the crossfire, let me ask a question
> about this.
> 
> First of all, if I understand what's going on, it seems that Ed
> responded to Tom's statement that composers to do not "compose in
> temperaments". Ed offered his own evidence of how composers were
> "influenced by the tuning of their times".
> 
> So let me ask: Isn't Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier evidence enough of
> Ed's point? I mean, wasn't it written for, and wasn't it a demonstration
> of, a particular temperament? Please correct me (gently) if I'm wrong.
> 
> Respectfully,
> 
> Charles Neuman
> PTG Assoc, Long Island - Nassau

- -- 
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no

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