[CAUT] well tempered / Which Bach ?

[Fred Sturm]

	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
>