✪✪✪ Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis

Wildboar Bach's early works, pre-Weimar, through his late works at Leipzig. Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis history, Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis significance and Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis, What tuning did Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis intend? In Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis, Daniel Chorzempa became the first person to Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis it, Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis multiple instruments, Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis fortepiano, organ, clavichord, and Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis. Since there Rosa Parks Civil Rights Movement been Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis other proposals and many Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Analysis of the work in different and unequal tunings, some derived from historical Jacqueline Sheehan Character Analysis, some by modern authors. Mk Harpsichord performances of various parts of Elements of film I by Martha Goldstein are in the public domain.

3.5.5 - J.S. Bach, Fugue 11 in F Major from Well-Tempered Clavier vol. 1 Analysis Walkthrough

Fischer 's Ariadne musica neo-organoedum published in and reissued is a set of 20 prelude-fugue pairs in ten major and nine minor keys and the Phrygian mode , plus five chorale -based ricercars. Bach knew the collection and borrowed some of the themes from Fischer for the Well-Tempered Clavier. It was long believed that Bach had taken the title The Well-Tempered Clavier from a similarly named set of 24 Preludes and Fugues in all the keys, for which a manuscript dated was found in the library of the Brussels Conservatoire. It was later shown that this was the work of a composer who was not even born in Bernhard Christian Weber 1 December — 5 February It was in fact written in —50, and in imitation of Bach's example.

Bach's title suggests that he had written for a note well-tempered tuning system in which all keys sounded in tune also known as "circular temperament". The opposing system in Bach's day was meantone temperament [ citation needed ] in which keys with many accidentals sound out of tune. See also musical tuning. Bach would have been familiar with different tuning systems, and in particular as an organist would have played instruments tuned to a meantone system.

It is sometimes assumed that by "well-tempered" Bach intended equal temperament , the standard modern keyboard tuning which became popular after Bach's death, but modern scholars suggest instead a form of well temperament. During much of the 20th century it was assumed that Bach wanted equal temperament , which had been described by theorists and musicians for at least a century before Bach's birth. This represents an equation of the most tonally remote enharmonic keys where the flat and sharp arms of the circle of fifths cross each other opposite to C major.

Any performance of this pair would have required both of these enharmonic keys to sound identically tuned, thus implying equal temperament in the one pair, as the entire work implies as a whole. However, research has continued into various unequal systems contemporary with Bach's career. Accounts of Bach's own tuning practice are few and inexact. The three most cited sources are Forkel , Bach's first biographer ; Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg , who received information from Bach's sons and pupils; and Johann Kirnberger , one of those pupils. Forkel reports that Bach tuned his own harpsichords and clavichords and found other people's tunings unsatisfactory; his own allowed him to play in all keys and to modulate into distant keys almost without the listeners noticing it.

Marpurg and Kirnberger, in the course of a heated debate, appear to agree that Bach required all the major thirds to be sharper than pure—which is in any case virtually a prerequisite for any temperament to be good in all keys. Johann Georg Neidhardt, writing in and , described a range of unequal and near-equal temperaments as well as equal temperament itself , which can be successfully used to perform some of Bach's music, and were later praised by some of Bach's pupils and associates. Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach himself published a rather vague tuning method which was close to but still not equal temperament: having only "most of" the fifths tempered, without saying which ones nor by how much.

Since there have been many other proposals and many performances of the work in different and unequal tunings, some derived from historical sources, some by modern authors. Whatever their provenances, these schemes all promote the existence of subtly different musical characters in different keys, due to the sizes of their intervals. However, they disagree as to which key receives which character:.

More recently there has been a series of proposals of temperaments derived from the handwritten pattern of loops on Bach's title page. These loops though truncated by a later clipping of the page can be seen at the top of the title page image at the beginning of the article. Nevertheless, some musicologists say it is insufficiently proven that Bach's looped drawing signifies anything reliable about a tuning method. Bach may have tuned differently per occasion, or per composition, throughout his career.

Each Prelude is followed by a Fugue in the same key. In each book the first Prelude and Fugue is in C major , followed by a Prelude and Fugue in its parallel minor key C minor. The first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier was composed in the early s, with Bach's autograph dated Apart from the early versions of several preludes included in W. The two major primary sources for this collection of Preludes and Fugues are the "London Original" LO manuscript, dated between and , with scribes including Bach, his wife Anna Magdalena and his oldest son Wilhelm Friedeman, which is the basis for Version A of WTC II , [29] and for Version B, that is the version published by the 19th-century Bach-Gesellschaft , a copy primarily written by Johann Christoph Altnickol Bach's son-in-law , with some corrections by Bach, and later also by Altnickol and others.

Prelude as a theme with variations. Fugue in three voices. Musically, the structural regularities of the Well-Tempered Clavier encompass an extraordinarily wide range of styles, more so than most pieces in the literature. The preludes are also notable for their odd or irregular numbers of measures, in terms of both the phrases and the total number of measures in a given prelude. Each fugue is marked with the number of voices, from two to five. The fugues employ a full range of contrapuntal devices fugal exposition, thematic inversion, stretto , etc. Several attempts have been made to analyse the motivic connections between each prelude and fugue [31] — most notably Wilhelm Werker [32] and Johann Nepomuk David. They are also distinct for having an odd number of measures, both when it comes to the measures and phrases in each prelude.

All fugues are marked to show how many voices there are in any given fugue 2, 3, 4, or 5 voices. Also, multiple analysis has been attempted to decipher the relations of motifs between fugue and prelude. Here, the fugue utilizes the first 4 prelude notes in a similar metric position, albeit, at half-speed. Over recordings of this celebrated collection have been documented until now, also transcriptions for synthesizers and ensembles. T he limpid, clean, textures are merely one of its most striking characteristics.

Add to that a subtle sense of rightness in every tempo. The tone of the preludes are perfectly timed, nothing seems labored or hurried, as the fugues naturally unfold. Each voice exudes its own distinct space and color, like the savory icing on a delicate dessert. The way Bach varied his preludes to incorporate multiple musical forms, from improvisations to arias, studies to dances, tending every one of them individually evokes a clear sense of musical authority and direction. There are no ulterior motives, just a natural unfolding of some truly mesmerizing music.

Menu 1. Prelude 2. Go back. Behind the music Story. Extra videos. Nothing too heavy After a swaying opening, Bach suddenly lets rip. Vocal texs Original. Concerto in A minor organ works, BWV