4 ms·
>The whole point of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier music is that tunes transposed to different keys sounded different, so you needed to compose the music specific
by princeb 10y ago
>The whole point of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier music is that tunes transposed to different keys sounded different, so you needed to compose the music specifically for each key.
that sounds wrong. tranposing a piece into the instrument's natural temperament will make it sound better. TWC doesn't do that, you play a piece of any key without needing to transpose anything, because the piano is equally-tempered and has no natural temperament (without going into how "well temperament" differs from "equal temperament").
for instruments whose tuning can be changed with technique, like string instruments (even fretted ones), wind, reed and brass instruments you can revert to playing a pure temperament in order to make certain harmonies sound "better", which is what we sometimes did - for example, by getting the minor third instruments to play slightly flatter - in a symph band.
- jacobolus 10y ago> WTC doesn't do that, you play a piece of any key without needing to transpose anything, because the piano is equally-tempered and has no natural temperament The Well-Tempered Clavier was not written for an equal-tempered piano. Playing it on a modern piano gives you a different sound than you’d get on a harpsichord or clavichord or whatever tuned as Bach would tune them (from what I understand it’s not entirely clear what this tuning should be though). (Caveat: I’m not remotely an authority on this subject, but just some guy on the internet; consult your local musicologist / early music expert for better advice.) I found this youtube video in a search, which has a kind of interesting theory about the tuning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tbvLNH6FI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tbvLNH6FI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xls6Zzw4GQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xls6Zzw4GQM (text explanation: http://larips.com http://larips.com) or some of WTC in (I believe) said tuning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoKaDrYS1sw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoKaDrYS1sw
- jacobolus 10y agoFor context, this is a nice interview about harpsichord and fortepiano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pdBNkgdUJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pdBNkgdUJc And here’s some general explanation of well temperament on a piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNY7Eyntlt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNY7Eyntlt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC8p1PmB6sk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC8p1PmB6sk (Watch those last ones if you want to understand why 18th and early 19th century music sounds so lackluster on equal tempered modern pianos.)