Bach vs Equal Temperament, part 1 -- Bradley Lehman

PART 1 OF 2. Five preludes from book 1 of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" are performed on harpsichord, twice each. Part 1 of the video presentation has the preludes in B major, C major, and E major. Part 2 has the preludes in F minor and E-flat minor.

The first performance of each pair is in equal temperament, and the second is in the "Bach/Lehman 1722" which I believe to have been Bach's own practice for this book of music. (Details: see http://www.larips.com )

The performances are by Bradley Lehman, May 31 2005. Same instrument, same camera, same day, trying to play as similarly as possible. All of the equal-temperament "takes" were recorded first, then the instrument retuned, and then all of the Bach-temperament takes.

My own impression, hearing these 2 1/2 years later and editing them together into this presentation: the Bach temperament sounds enough like equal to fool just about anybody, and yet...it brings both more intensity and more relaxation to the music. In any event, it encourages me as a player to bend the music more freely and naturally, investing it with more nuances, in reaction to the sound. It makes me listen more closely to melody and counterpoint, the way the musical lines interact with one another. Tonality "locks in" with a subtly different character and mood for every key (scale).

Equal temperament, by contrast, goes on and on with a relatively bland inoffensiveness...being less than inspiring, and encouraging "run-on" uninflected performances. The performer has to work harder to make something special of the music. Why not tune instead with a subtle inequality, and let the intonation itself do part of the interpretive work?

Better-miked versions of most of these pieces are on my CD "Playing from Bach's fancy", recorded a few weeks before these videos. Details:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/cd1003.html

There are also (as of autumn 2007) two complete recordings of the Well-Tempered Clavier book 1 by other harpsichordists using this same Bach tuning: Peter Watchorn and Richard Egarr.

Enjoy!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• johann
• sebastian
• bach
• well
• tempered
• clavier
• harpsichord
• cembalo
• clavecin
• tuning
• temperament
• equal
• prelude

[freespacehero]

Mr. Lehman,

Thank you very much for uploading this comparison to aid the understanding of such a fascinating and mysterious topic.

I was wondering if you could upload a higher quality version of this please? It would make it more enjoyable and the differences perhaps more clear.

[thebpl]

Thanks! I don't have a higher-resolution version, though. That one was recorded in May 2005 (as it says in the "more info" section here). The camera's resolution is what it is.

If you're looking for better audio, you can hear most of these pieces on my CD. They are also in the complete sets of WTC book 1 by Watchorn, Egarr, and Beausejour all using this temperament. YouTube is no substitute for any of those recordings!

[spectralmusic]

Hello Bradley. Have you considered recording the complete Well-Tempered Clavier with this tuning and selling it to a label? You could divide the actual playing between colleagues.

[thebpl]

There are already three complete recordings of it (book 1) on the market -- Watchorn, Egarr, and Beausejour. Watchorn is recording book 2 right now.

I also have my own recording of six preludes/fugues from book 1 out there: five (C, f, f#, bb, B) on harpsichord, one (Eb) on organ.

[stuyourfuturegod]

Wow, this sounds great. If one were interested in tuning a piano in a similar way would that work out? And would it be possible to tell the piano tuner to tune it based on the method you gave? But yeah, congratulations, this is great.

[thebpl]

Thanks! Yes, it works very well on piano too. I maintain our church's piano in this all the time, for almost three years already...and have played through lots of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Brahms, Joplin, Debussy, etc. It's as flexible as equal is, through all keys.

[kratanuva725]

@kratanuva725 in some cases.

I hope this is all understandable, it is coplicated.

Also, I don't think that serial music sounds better in 12-tet; the un-eveness of semitones makes it more interesting. It might be usefull if you were going for a completley sterile, lifeless, serial sound though....

[kratanuva725]

@kratanuva725 This is true, however, what if you wanted to play a C-F# progression, and you wanted both of the chords to be equally tempered? That is a specific sound that can't be acchieved in a well temperament. The key here is, non-diatonic progressions might be more desirable in 12-tet than in a well temperament, simply because it is a diffrent sound. I'm not saying that C-F# in a well temperament dosen't sound good, just that in 12-tet, it sounds diffrent, that that sound may be desirable..

[kratanuva725]

@kratanuva725 Wow, sorry about the spelling, anyway...

Some well temperaments have a few diatonic scales that are very close to an equally tempered diatonic scale. This is a good thing, because the equally tempered major scale is a specific sound, desirable in certan situations. Now, I used to think that since well temperaments have near equal tempered diatonic scales, and many more varietys of diatonic scales, they had more variation in color as opposed to 12-TET.

[kratanuva725]

I would just like to say, that for the longest time, I found well temperaments superior to equal temperament in all cases, but I recentley have found a few cases where equal temperament (besides praticaloty bases poruposes) would be desirable from a compositinal standpoint.

[javierpe9103]

es mucho mas claro la afinacion de bach !!!

[philnoll]

So much more brilliant when you hear it well tempered.

[theillfrisch]

the differences are much more noticable when the chords are held longer. i can clearly bear the beating on the final major chords of each piece in equal temperment.

[silpheedTandy]

that's so crazy!! it totally sounds like you used better recording equipment for bach's temperment -- it sounds more "crystal" and more enchanting. my goodness, i never heard the difference between equal temperment tuning vs just tuning before this -- thanks for making this vid!

[Rendereason]

Congratulations on advancing such a little discussed topic. I hope your Bach temperament becomes widely discussed in the music community, (and widely accepted, of course!).

This works is so groundbreaking that it could revolutionize how we perform and listen to ALL of our classical and modern songs! Playing classical music in equal temperament is wrong, after all!