|
Bach Temperament
A Bach Temperament refers to the way the composer Johann Sebastian Bach tuned his harpsichords and clavichords for the interpretation, among other pieces, of his masterpiece '' Das wohltemperirte Clavier (1722 / 1740-1742)''. There exists little certainty on how this temperament is structured. Bach did not leave written instructions on how he tuned. He was famous for tuning his keyboard in a swift and easy way, but it is not clear how. It should also be kept in mind that Bach's musical education was based on the meantone, the "dominating" keyboard tuning during the Baroque period (ca. 1600 to ca. 1750). Interpretations The earliest known source for the tuning is the publication in 1753 of ''Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen'' by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. This work describes how to tune the fifths slightly different from purity, accompanied by an aural control of major and minor thirds, as well as full chords, so that all twenty-four keys sound clean and crisp, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the '' Goldberg Variations'' and '' The Well-Tempered Clavier''; organ works such as the '' Schubler Chorales'' and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the '' St Matthew Passion'' and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Prot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Das Wohltemperierte Klavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of instruments, most typically the harpsichord or clavichord, but not excluding the organ. The modern German spelling for the collection is ' (WTK; ). Bach gave the title ' to a book of preludes and fugues in all 24 keys, major and minor, dated 1722, composed "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study". Some 20 years later, Bach compiled a second book of the same kind (24 pairs of preludes and fugues), which became known as ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', Part Two (in German: ''Zweyter Theil'', modern spelling: ''Zweiter Teil''). Modern editions usually refer to both parts as ''The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I'' (WTC I) and ''The Well-Tempered Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Temperament
In musical tuning, a temperament is a tuning system that slightly compromises the pure intervals of just intonation to meet other requirements. Most modern Western musical instruments are tuned in the equal temperament system. Tempering is the process of altering the size of an interval by making it narrower or wider than pure. "Any plan that describes the adjustments to the sizes of some or all of the twelve fifth intervals in the circle of fifths so that they accommodate pure octaves and produce certain sizes of major thirds is called a ''temperament''." Temperament is especially important for keyboard instruments, which typically allow a player to play only the pitches assigned to the various keys, and lack any way to alter pitch of a note in performance. Historically, the use of just intonation, Pythagorean tuning and meantone temperament meant that such instruments could sound "in tune" in one key, or some keys, but would then have more dissonance in other keys. In the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. C. P. E. Bach was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father's Baroque style and the Classical style that followed it. His personal approach, an expressive and often turbulent one known as ' or ' sensitive style', applied the principles of rhetoric and drama to musical structures. His dynamism stands in deliberate contrast to the more mannered galant style also then in vogue. To distinguish him from his brother Johann Christian, the "London Bach", who at this time was music master to Queen Charlotte of Great Britain, C. P. E. Bach was known as the "Berlin Bach" during his residence in that city, and later as the "Hamburg Bach" when he s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Kirnberger
Johann Philipp Kirnberger (also ''Kernberg''; 24 April 1721, Saalfeld – 27 July 1783, Berlin) was a musician, composer (primarily of fugues), and music theorist. He was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. According to Ingeborg Allihn, Kirnberger played a significant role in the intellectual and cultural exchange between Germany and Poland in the mid-18th century (Allihn 1995, 209). Between 1741 and 1751 Kirnberger lived and worked in Poland for powerful magnates including Lubomirski, Poninski, and Rzewuski before ending up at the Benedictine Cloister in Lviv (then part of Poland). He spent much time collecting Polish national dances and compiled them in his treatise Die Charaktere der Taenze (Allihn 1995, 211). Kirnberger became a violinist at the court of Frederick II of Prussia in 1751. He was the music director to the Prussian Princess Anna Amalia from 1758 until his death. Kirnberger greatly admired Johann Sebastian Bach, deeming him "the greatest of all composers." Kirn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (21 November 1718 – 22 May 1795) was a German music critic, music theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century. Life Little is known of Marpurg's early life. According to various sources, he studied "philosophy" and music. It is clear that he enjoyed a strong education and was friendly with various leading figures of the Enlightenment, including Winckelmann and Lessing. In 1746, he travelled to Paris as the secretary for a General named either Rothenberg or Bodenberg. There, he became acquainted with intellectuals including the writer and philosopher Voltaire, the mathematician d'Alembert and the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau. After 1746, he returned to Berlin where he was more or less independent. Marpurg's offer to write exclusively for Breitkopf & Härtel was declined by the firm in 1757. In 1760, he received an appointment to the Royal Prussian Lotteries, whose director he became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equal Temperament
An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, which gives an equal perceived step size as pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency. In classical music and Western music in general, the most common tuning system since the 18th century has been twelve-tone equal temperament (also known as 12 equal temperament, 12-TET or 12-ET; informally abbreviated to twelve equal), which divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equal on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 ( ≈ 1.05946). That resulting smallest interval, the width of an octave, is called a semitone or half step. In Western countries the term ''equal temperament'', without qualification, generally means 12-TET. In modern times, 12-TET is usually tuned relative to a standard pit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel (22 February 1749 – 20 March 1818) was a German musicologist and music theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include '' Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work'', the first substantial survey on the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography He was born at Meeder in Coburg. He was the son of a cobbler, and received early musical training, especially in keyboard playing, from Johann Heinrich Schulthesius, who was the local Kantor. In other aspects of his music education he was self-taught, especially in regards to theory. As a teenager he served as a singer in Lüneburg, and studied law for two years at the University of Göttingen; he remained associated with the University for more than fifty years, where he held varied positions, including instructor of music theory, organist, keyboard teacher, and eventually director of all music at the university. In 1787 he received an honorary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet
Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet (31 July 1841 – 7 August 1912) was an English scientist and music theorist, and brother of Admiral Sir Day Bosanquet, and philosopher Bernard Bosanquet.Bosanquet was the son of Rev. R. W. Bosanquet of Rock Hall, Alnwick, Northumberland. He was educated at Eton College, and took first class honors in Natural Science and Mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford, and later became a fellow of St. John's College. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, London but worked mainly tutoring at Oxford, notably for the Natural Science School, and later was Professor of Acoustics at the Royal College of Music. He was a musician and an authority on organ construction, and published a number of experimental and theoretical papers on acoustics, electromagnetism and astronomy. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1871 and Fellow of the Royal Society in 1890. Bosanquet developed classes for musical tunings used mapping pitche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbert Kelletat
Herbert Kelletat (13 October 1907 – 25 May 2007) was a German musician, organist, author of musicological works and choir director. Since 1930, he published scholarly papers, especially on the history of the organ and on matters of musical tuning. Life Born in Saalfeld, Kreis Mohrungen, Kelletat experienced his early childhood in Graudenz (West Prussia) and in Liebstadt (East Prussia). Later the family lived in Bromberg (1917-1921) and in Halle (1921-1930). Kelletat began studying German, English and musicology at Friedrichs-University Halle in 1926. Although his parents moved to Marienburg (West Prussia), he initially stayed in Halle and later changed to study at the Albertus-Universität Königsberg. There, from 1930 to 1934, he extended his studies of musicology with Joseph Müller-Blattau and organ playing with Adolf Wieber. On the occasion of a trip to the Baltic States in 1932 he met Monika Hunnius in Riga. Kelletat received his doctorate in 1933 with the disser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirnberger Temperament
Kirnberger temperament is an irregular temperament developed in the second half of the 18th century by Johann Kirnberger. Kirnberger was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach, held great admiration for his teacher and was one of his principal proponents. The first Kirnberger temperament, "Kirnberger I", had similarities to Pythagorean temperament, which stressed the importance of perfect fifths all throughout the circle of fifths. A complete circle of perfect fifths is not possible, because when the circle comes to an end at the tone it began, it will have overshot its original pitch. Thus, if one tunes C–G, G–D, D–A, A–E, E–B, B–F, F–C, C–G (A), A–E, E–B, B–F, F–C … the new "C" will not be the same frequency as the first. The two "C"s will have a discrepancy of about 23 cents (a comma), which would be unacceptable. This difference between the initial "c" and final "c" that is derived from performing a series of perfect tunings is generally referred to as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
