J

OHANN Sebastian Bach never required equal

temperament for keyboards. Music historians
have hitherto failed to notice that he actually wrote
down and made full use of a specific unequal alterna-
tive whose resources are much richer. Its layout is:
five comma 5ths FCGDAE, then three pure
5ths EBF

, and finally three I: comma 5ths

C

. Although this may not look like any-

thing special on paper, its sound is marvellous for the
complex requirements of tonal music.
Bach was no lover of dry, mathematical stuff .
1
Despite his aversion to computation in numbers
and theoretical speculation in words, the 37-year-old
composer notated that specific temperament on the
title-page of Das wohltemperirte Clavier (The well-
tuned keyboard, hereafter WTC).
2
His presentation
of the required tuning method is the sinuous spiral
he drew at the top of the title-page (illus.1). It
provides a set of tempering instructions for harpsi-
chords, clavichords or organs, completely describing
the distinctive character he expected for every key,
every scale, every interval and every moment. The
WTC is explicitly about tuning, the exploration of
all possible tonalities (and not simply a transposition
of a single major key sound, and a single minor key
sound, to all possible positions).
Until now music history had lost three crucial
pieces of information: (1) that Bach ever wrote down
any required keyboard-tuning method at all; (2) that
this drawing is his precise schematic; and (3) the
proper derivation of a set of instructions, arising
from normal 17th-century temperament ordinaire
practice.
3
Bachs method is a practical one. It is easy to set
quickly by ear, usable in all keys, with a pleasing
progression of key differences, and it yields convin-
cing performances of the WTC. The book in its
entirety shows that Bach was expert in tuning,
expected a precise intonation on his keyboards, and
allowed the sound to influence his creative imagina-
tion. As a guide to musicianship it teaches players to
listen closely to the intervals produced in melody
and harmony, as details of intonation can help to
determine the Affekt, phrasing, articulation, tempo
and accentuation of the music. The ears, the phys-
ical process of tuning, and the feel of the instrument
during performance all support this. The music
sounds so euphonious and pure that it seems other-
worldly, especially after a lifetime of hearing the
same music tuned differently.
4
This article in its two parts examines the tempera-
ment thoroughly from many angles, including some
of the dry, mathematical stuff . For best direct per-
ception of the material, however, it is important to
set up this pattern of intonation on a keyboard and
play with it!
Background: the commas and other problems to
be solved
The choice of historically and musically appropriate
keyboard temperaments always depends on the music
to be played. What did the composer expect as a
norm? What features of the music are to be high-
lighted? What is the appropriate balance of melody
versus harmony? What key areas are visited during
the composition? How many sharps and flats are in
use, given that they might be tuned differently from
one another? Does the composition have any special
expressive effects to be brought out by the choice
of temperament? What is the player/tuners skill
Bradley Lehman
Bachs extraordinary temperament: our Rosetta
Stone1
3
Early Music, Vol. xxxiii, No.I Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved
doi:10.1093/em/cah037, available online at www.em.oupjournals.org
4 early musi c february 2005
1 The top of the title-page of Bachs Das wohltemperirte Clavier (1722). The complete page is reproduced in the I,II
Grove dictionary, vol. i, p. I,:, and in many modern editions of the music. (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preuischer
Kulturbesitz)
(then or now!) setting up different selections on
different occasions? What other instruments and
voices are to be used with the keyboard? What is the
role of musical taste and experience? Are the instru-
ments to be left in a particular temperament for
years, needing only minor maintenance, or to be
retuned afresh on every occasion? To understand the
nature of these problems of keyboard temperament
along with Bachs solution, a brief review of the basic
tuning issues and nomenclature is required.
All octaves are pure, as a rule. Within that
premise, the tuning of 12-note keyboards presents
three competing problems. The tuner must find a
musically appropriate and tasteful distribution of
three different error intervals. These intervals are
as follows:
Pythagorean comma (hereafter PC): twelve pure
5ths, less seven octaves; the interval .
A cycle of twelve consecutive 5ths must remove a
total of one PC, to avoid overshooting the octave.
Since there are twelve 5ths, some or all of them must
be tuned too narrow by some portion(s) of the PC.
On average the 5ths must be PC too flat.
Syntonic comma (hereafter SC): four pure 5ths, less
two octaves and a pure major 3rd; the interval .
A cycle of four consecutive 5ths must remove one
SC if the resulting major 3rd is to be pure. Since
there are twelve major 3rds, some or all of them
must be tuned too wide by some portion(s) of the
SC. On average the major 3rds must be SC too
sharp. (This is a large and easily audible amount:
approximately of an equal-tempered semitone.)
Lesser diesis (hereafter simply diesis): an octave, less
three pure major 3rds; the interval -. For exam-
ple: if we tune three pure 3rds CE, EG

, G

we
get the interval CB

which is much too flat to be an

octave. As octaves must be pure, the diesis must be
distributed to one or more of the three major 3rds
making some or all of them wider than pure. This
must be handled four times in any temperament: in
the major 3rd stacks starting on F, C, G and D.
The geometric difference between the PC and the SC
is called the schisma. It is very nearly the same size as
either PC or II SC.
Temperaments usually split either the PC or the
SC into small, manageable portions of , , or
. These are distributed among some or all of the
5ths. The 5ths are made deliberately out of tune by
these subtle amounts, such that the resulting 3rds
and steps will have a pleasing balance in their own
musical functions. For all practical purposes the
PC temperaments are SC temperaments, as
those two small portions have very nearly the
same size.
early musi c february 2005 5
The phrase regular 5ths refers to two or more 5ths
that are exactly the same size, geometrically. If they
are tempered 5ths rather than pure 5ths, their temper-
ing (not their beat rate!)
5
is the same. They are slightly
out of tune, each by the same amount. Regular tem-
peraments, also called mean-tone temperaments,
6
are those that have eleven 5ths the same size, and one
wolf 5th (truly a diminished 6th) allowed to be
much too wide. The wolf 5th is a garbage area,
absorbing all the accumulated amount by which the
tempered 5ths overcompensated one PC.
The regular temperaments tend to emphasize the
quality of major 3rds, providing eight major 3rds
that are pure or nearly so, and four misspelled major
3rds (actually diminished 4ths) that absorb most of
the SC and diesis errors. The composers then
avoided these forbidden 3rds and wolf 5th, or used
them very carefully as a special effect. In the regular
temperaments the enharmonic pairs of notes (such
as D

and E

) are absolutely different from one

another.
Any major 3rds resulting from four consecutive
pure 5ths are called Pythagorean 3rds, being one SC
too wide.
7
The still wider diminished 4ths of regular
temperaments are often called wolves, since they
are scarcely more usable than the wolf 5th is. Good
temperaments (for the Germans) are those in
which none of the twelve major 3rds are worse than
Pythagorean. The grammatically incorrect English
phrase well temperament is a poor translation
from German, and sometimes carries the additional
connotation that a temperament has no wide 5ths.
Circulating, enharmonic, semi-regular or irregu-
lar are better synonyms for good temperament: all
24 major and minor triads are available, at least
approximately, with no serious wolves anywhere.
The tuning literature is filled with cents
8
tables
to measure small increments of pitch.
9
Unfortun-
ately, that measurement system itself clouds some of
the most relevant issues regarding 3rds and 5ths.
Notably, the cent scale biases its users toward a
norm of equal temperament (100 cents per semi-
tone, and 1,200 per octave), and it is scarcely useful
for any work with pure major 3rds (approx. 386.31
cents) or 5ths (approx. 701.96). It remains reason-
ably good for describing comparative sizes of tones
and semitones.
For analysis of 3rds and 5ths I prefer the
Temperament Units (hereafter TU) method devel-
oped by the organ builder John Brombaugh, a much
finer-grained logarithmic scale assigning 720 micro-
scopic portions to the PC. The SC then works out to
660 TU, the schisma 60, and the diesis 1260. All these
numbers are easy to handle on paper or mentally,
divisible by 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12: the fractions used in
most descriptions of historical temperaments. The
TU system therefore allows a theorist or player to
work almost exclusively with integers, visualizing a
temperament by merely adding and subtracting easy
portions of commas. The SC error of any major 3rd
is found by adding the four TU values of the inter-
vening 5ths, and dividing by 660. Three major 3rds
stacked up must distribute a total of 1,260 somehow.
All twelve 5ths in a temperament must add up to
720 TU. Temperaments can therefore be dia-
grammed easily on paper, with simple numbers, and
competing temperaments can be compared directly.
Bachs diagram
Bachs WTC title-page (shown in illus.1) is a precise
abstraction of his preferred tuning method, in the
form of a pen stroke with 11 large loops.
A keyboard temperament can be described com-
pletely by the following parameters: (1) the relative
sizes of eleven 5ths,
10
(2) the orientation
11
and (3) the
knowledge that the endpoints do or do not connect
to one another.
12
Bachs diagram has those elements,
taking each large loop as an interval of a 5th
(CGDA etc.).
13
The diagram has three loops with
one knot in them, then three empty loops, then five
loops with double knots. The letter C orients the
home base, middle C: second from the right. The
endpoints do not meet, but we assume they must
make a not unpleasant 5th (specifically B

F), as
the book contains compositions in all keys, no
exceptions.
As Bach pointed out in 1725, in his notes to teach
principles of thorough-bass, one can write down
only the rudiments of musical understanding, and
then The other precautions that must be observed
will explain themselves better in oral instruction
than in writing.
14
Thorough-bass, improvisation,
composition, tuning and performance are all part
of the same keyboard skill set to be learned from a
6 early musi c february 2005
master teacher. Indeed, after one has learned Bachs
1722 lesson with regard to tuning, his practical
instructions are elegant and easy to follow, setting
his temperament quickly by ear. The report that
Bach could prepare his entire harpsichord in
15 minutes
15
is nothing surprising; it is simple in this
temperament, with a bit of practice and experience.
How would Bach teach his pupils to tune harpsi-
chords and clavichords, as part of their all-round
instruction? Obviously, hands-on demonstrations
and explanations at the instruments are required.
This is practical common sense in learning how to
listen closely, handling the tuning lever, and making
careful adjustments to the instrument. It is also
reflected in the well-known anecdote from the
MarpurgKirnberger debates, where Marpurg tried
to throw Kirnbergers report of tuning lessons with
Bach back into his face.
16
There is little or no need
for any of the tuning instructions to be written
down, as to the specific method or methods. The
teacher is there to guide the process, showing what
to listen for and verifying the adjustments.
Bach in 1722 applied for a teaching and super-
visory position in Leipzig. How would the Leipzig
authorities know, in his absence and before hiring
him, how he might teach anything? Quite simply, he
prepared a curriculum vitae, a set of written audition
materials for the position.
17
Wolff has clarified this hypothesis further, regard-
ing Bachs use of the WTC (plus the Inventions/
Sinfonias and Orgelbchlein) as Leipzig audition
material:
I8
Clearly, none of the works was specifically composed for
Leipzig. However, more likely than not, the final preparation
of the fair copies of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the
Aufrichtige Anleitungin particular, the carefully coordinated
phraseology of their title-pages (including that supplementing
the Orgel-Bchlein)was calculated to impress the authorities
in Leipzig, especially an old, experienced teacher like Rector
Ernesti, and to persuade them of Bachs teaching ability. That
Bach later made extensive use of these distinctive instruction
manuals is confirmed not only by the many copies made of
them by Bachs Leipzig pupils, but also by first-hand refer-
ences such as Gerbers to his lessons with Bach.
This is corroborated by the observation that
Bachs wording in the middle section of the WTC
title-page is a parody of the title-pages of Kuhnaus
Neuer Clavier-bung (1689, 1692).
19
Bachs emphasis
here is the assertion that he will surpass the revered
incumbent Kuhnau by handling all the ut re mi
and re mi fa keys, not just most of them. Bach
here demonstrates the complete flexibility he will
bring as a candidate for Kuhnaus job in Leipzig.
The application to Leipzig would have given
Bach motivation both for this wording, and to write
down explicit temperament instructions here at
all (as one more part of the complete package, his
pedagogical fitness). The project accomplishes sev-
eral tasks: showing his potential employers his
teaching materials, showing dedication to do his
best, demonstrating the way his music sounds, and
allowing them to study his musical science them-
selves at their leisure.
Bachs pupils were expected to make their own
handwritten copies of assigned pieces from the
source manuscript; this was normal pedagogy. My
hypothesis is this: for the Leipzig audition, Bach
included the required tuning method by which his
music is to be played,
20
putting it at the top of the
title-page of the WTC.
To learn Bachs tuning method, in his absence, all
one has to do is to make a handwritten copy of the
drawing (analogous to copying out pieces of music),
understand what it means, and the lesson is learned.
21
This gave the Leipzig authorities everything they
would need to know: set up a keyboard as specified,
play through these three books of music, and be
amazed at Bachs skill in controlling musical sound,
his readiness to teach, and his readiness to co-ordi-
nate church music. As we shall see, the tuning
method also influenced the content of the musical
subjects themselves, in the WTCs preludes and
fugues. These show Bachs readiness to derive
invention from any inspiring source, including the
subtle sounds of the intervals themselves.
Translation of the diagram: the practical recipe
How is a student (or the Leipzig board of examin-
ers) to draw or trace the temperament diagram,
making a copy to start learning the lesson? The solu-
tion, as students of drawing know, is to turn the
page upside-down to see if it might be easier to copy
that way. Indeed, Bachs diagram is difficult to copy
right-side-up, in ink without smudging, getting the
loops and sub-loops in the same directions as his.
early musi c february 2005 7
But it is trivially easy for a right-handed person, left
to right in a single flowing and sinuous stroke, with
the page inverted. There are five loops with double
spirals outward. Next come three empty loops. Next
are three loops with single spirals inserted on the
down-stroke, followed by the casual flourish at the
end of the line.
The note-names are mapped to Bachs diagram as
shown in illus.2. The note C is in second position,
where Bach wrote it (with the page turned right-
side-up again). Each 5th is made either narrow or
pure: normal practice in keyboard tuning. The
details of this are made explicit by the diagram.
The first part of the temperament, as is normal
practice, is to establish the regularly tempered set of
natural notes: FCGDAE. The normal amount
of tempering is comma,
22
leading to the major
3rds FA and CE, which are each sharp by the
amount known in ordinary musical experience. The
five tempered 5ths here are the double spirals of
the diagram.
We have now arrived at E, and have built the size
of CE as the smallest (most nearly pure, most reso-
nant) 3rd. A basic issue in temperament is to bal-
ance the three major 3rds that build a (pure) octave;
therefore our attention turns to the next 3rd of the
scale,
23
the building of G

upward from E such that it

will also give a decent enharmonic A

to our C.
According to the diagram, we tune four pure 5ths
EBF

. . . and then, as indicated by the

change in loop, we back the G

downward slightly,
narrowing that 5th, giving it a savoury Spur (like
eine Spur Pfeffer to spice the cooking appropri-
ately). This takes the edge off the very bright EG

,
tastefully. And, sure enough, this G

played with C
passes as a very pleasant A

.
We are almost finished; for the final 3rd of the
scale from A

back to C, it remains only to continue

G

, again (as the loops show) giving the same

tiny Spur of impurity to each 5th. We already have F
from earlier. The G

, D

and A

here will be serving

duty also as A

, E

and B

, and we need only ensure

that the resulting 5th B

F is not obtrusively poor. If

all the instructions here are followed carefully, it will
be either very slightly wide (if we started with PC
in the naturals), or pure (if we started with SC).
24
We check all our major 3rds: first FA and CE
give the calm sound of regular comma tuning.
Then GB, DF

, AC

and EG

become increasingly
sharp and spicy. Finally, BD

, F

, D

F, A

C,
E

G, B

D and FA all relax from the peak of EG

.
We are ready to play and compose pieces in all keys.
At the right side of Bachs diagram (marked* in
illus.2), the A

does not join the beginning F; note

the similar single knot in the flourish, probably rep-
resenting its resulting comma wide 5th. At the
left side, note the three small loops: probably indic-
ating the beginning beat rate of the FA major 3rd,
approximately three beats per second.
25
It can also be observed that the single Spur of the
last three sharps, during the tempering process,
works out to be half the normal tempering of the
naturals, drawn appropriately as double Spuren!
How could Bach have represented his temperament
any more elegantly than this, without recourse to
written words or numbers (both of which he
disliked in his self-expression)?
26
To summarize Bachs temperament bearing: five
comma 5ths FCGDAE; three pure 5ths
EBF

; three comma 5ths C

; end.
Bachs handwritten letter C is there in its position,
too, lest anyone start in some wrong place, or miss
the point that this is a temperament recipe at all.
Each little knot within the bigger loops indicates
some unit of tempering to be applied to its 5th (that
is, the appropriate amount of spice or wavering
noise to introduce into its tuning, deliberately).
That unit works out to comma, portioned out as
single, double, or none. The drawing is beautiful
and elegant, like his music.
2 The notes described by Bachs loops, with the page turned upside-down to see (and copy) the schematic. This is the
same graphic as illus.1, with the words removed.
8 early musi c february 2005
Mathematical modelling of the same: scientific
reproducibility
To get the temperament exactly the same from day to
day, and for mathematical analysis, it can be set onto
the keyboard in a slightly different sequence. As with
a problem-solving technique of mazes (working both
forward and backward simultaneously), a tuner can
set a temperament onto the keyboard in whatever
sequence helps to get the job done accurately and
comfortably, as long as the resulting layout is correct.
Try the following step-by-step instructions:
1 Establish the naturals FCGDAE in regular
PC; that is, set up the first half of Vallotti,
which is already familiar to harpsichordists.
27
The
most practical single thing to know is that the
major 3rd of FA (both in the tenor octave below
middle C) has about 3 beats per second.
28
A second
checkpoint is middle C up to E, with about
4.5 beats per second.
29
2 Pure 5ths: EBF

.
3 Pure 5ths: FB

. (This is a step to put E

/D

exactly where it belongs.)

4 Put G

/A

in place against C

and E

, slightly tem-
pered from each (i.e. ): the single Spuren in
Bachs diagram.
5 Go back to B

and lower it slightly, so that D

is
similarly a 5th as shown by Bachs diagram,
and B

F becomes a slightly wide 5th.

6 All octaves and unisons are pure.
The results are shown in table 1; compare again with
illus.1 and 2 to see the correspondence, and play
through all the 5ths in the sequence of Bachs
drawing. The lesson is learned.
For those who are most comfortable setting
temperaments from an electronic device, the bottom
two rows of the chart show the adjustments from
equal temperament, to the nearest cent, reckoned
either from C or A. The deviations from regular
Pythagorean comma and regular syntonic
comma are also given, for keyboardists and ensem-
bles accustomed to those standards.
In the results from Bachs drawing we have a set
of the usual and regular comma naturals; a pure
B obtained from E; and then the remaining five acci-
dentals are each tastefully adjusted: sharps raised
slightly to build a remarkably high G

, and flats low-

ered slightly from their classic positions . . . giving
complete flexibility across the keyboard. The aural
magic happens in Bachs specific details of those
tasteful nudges. Since my April :oo discovery of
this method, it has already received a thorough
workout and confirmation beyond my own regular
use. Andrew Manze has toured with it for orchestral
continuo,
,o
and George Taylor has built it into the
new Goshen College organ.
,I
Why hasnt this been found before?
The following digest from the standard tuning liter-
ature and WTC literature should make it obvious
why Bachs diagram has not been treated as evid-
ence for any particular unequal temperament.
Historiography, while allowing for the possibility
that Bach had a specific practical temperament, has
pointed away from investigation of unequal tem-
peraments, and away from any evidence that is
outside the realm of words.
Is Bachs drawing on the WTC title-page worth
any more than a quick glance? The Neue Bach-
Ausgabe (NBA) officially dismissed the spiral
diagram, three times, as merely an ornamental
flourish. (1) Bach-Dokumente, 1963: Titelseite:
Wohltemperiertes Klavier, Kthen, 1722. (. . .)
Autograph. (. . .) []ber dem Text hs. Ornamente,
unter dem Text groer Schluschnrkel . . .
32
(2) Kritischer Bericht (KB), 1989: Titel, siehe
Notenband, S. XIV und 1. (. . .) ber und unter dem
Titel ornamentale Schnrkel.
33
The KB, as always
with the NBA, is so thorough and imposing with
detail, representing so many years of close scrutiny
by the worlds top Bach scholars, it is surprising that
the single most important piece of information at
the top of the title-page could have been missed.
(3) The Notenband itself (also 1989) presents a
facsimile of the title-page, of course. But, on the
opposite page of the same spread, only the words of
Bachs macaronic introduction (and their layout)
are reproduced in modern transcription.
34
The
readers attention is drawn immediately to the
legible modern transcription of the words, and away
from the photograph.
The Bach reader (1945; rev. edn 1966) presents the
title-page in a clear English translation, preserving
e
a
r
l
y

m
u
s
i
c
f
e
b
r
u
a
r
y

2
0
0
5



9
Table 1 Mathematical analysis of Bachs temperament
E

F C G D A E B F

Bach (I,::) title-page of WTC: PC

Fifth in TU oo oo I:o I:o I:o I:o I:o o o o oo oo
Fifth in PC
Fifth in SC - - - - -
Maj rd % SC o.o% ,|.,% i.% i.% |,.,% o.o% 8:.8% o.% 8:.8% i.% 8:.8% i.%
Diesis portion ,,.,% :8.o% :,.,% :,.,% :,.8% ,,.,% ,:.,% ,,.o% ,:.,% ,8.:% ,:.,% ,8.:%
Min ,rd % SC 8I.8% ,:.,% ,o.,% 8I.8% ,:.,% ,.,% ,.,% ,.,% o,.o% 8I.8% Ioo.o% ,o.,%
Tone c :o,., :o:.o I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I :oo.o :o,., :o,., :o:.o :oo.o :oo.o
Semitone c ,.I ,o.I ,.I ,8.o Ioo.o Io:.o Io,., Io,.8 Io,., Io:.o ,8.o ,o.I
Enharmonic D

Fx Cx B

Enharm err % PC oo.,% ,,.o% :oo.o% :oo.o% :oo.o% :oo.o% :oo.o% :oo.o% 8,.,% oo.,% ,o.o% ,:.,%
d PC (C) c .8 ,. o.o o.o o.o o.o o.o o.o . .8 ::. :.
Error % PC ,,.,% :,.o% o.o% o.o% o.o% o.o% o.o% o.o% Io.,% ,,.,% ,o.o% ,8.,%
Primary function E

F C G D A E B F

d SC (C) c o.8 ,.: o., o.o o., o., I.o I., :., ,., ,., II.I
d ET (C) c :.o :.o :.o o.o :.o ,., ,., ,.8 ,., ,., :.o :.o
d ET (A) c . . .8 ,. . i.o o.o i.o o.o i.o . .
Major tetrachord E

-F-G-A

-C-D-E

F-G-A-B

C-D-E-F G-A-B-C D-E-F

-G A-B-C

-D E-F

-G

-A B-C

-D

-E F

-G

-A

-B D

-E

-F-G

-B

-C-D

Ut-Re :o,., :o:.o I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I :oo.o :o,., :o,., :o:.o :oo.o :oo.o
Re-Mi I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I :oo.o :o,., :o,., :o:.o :oo.o :oo.o :o,., :o:.o
Mi-Fa Ioo.o Io:.o Io,., Io,.8 Io,., Io:.o ,8.o ,o.I ,.I ,o.I ,.I ,8.o
Minor tetrachord E

-F-G

-A

-C-D

-E

F-G-A

-B

C-D-E

-F G-A-B

-C D-E-F-G A-B-C-D E-F

-G-A B-C

-D-E F

-G

-A-B C

-D

-E-F

-A

-B-C

Re-Mi :o,., :o:.o I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I :oo.o :o,., :o,., :o:.o :oo.o :oo.o
Mi-Fa ,.I ,8.o Ioo.o Io:.o Io,., Io,.8 Io,., Io:.o ,8.o ,o.I ,.I ,o.I
Fa-Sol :o:.o :oo.o :oo.o :o,., :o:.o I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I I,o.I :oo.o :o,., :o,.,
Handling diesis A

-C 8 D

-F F

-A

8 B-D

within the octave E-G

:o A-C

D-F

G-B ,
(portions of :I) C-E F-A B

-D o E

-G
1 0 early musi c february 2005
only the words of the page and simulating their dis-
tinctive layout.
35
The new Bach reader (1998; here-
after NBR) gives the facsimile, and then the same
English translation as a paragraph of prose.
36
As for
calligraphic whimsy: the previous page in NBR
reproduces the title-page of Anna Magdalena Bachs
notebook, from the same year, in her handwriting.
The various spiral decorations on her letters are
merely decorative flourishes, as far as I have been
able to determine.
37
With this juxtapositioning,
then, it is easy for a reader to assume that all line-
drawing flourishes are merely a bit of fun with the
pen, and not to look closely at their details.
Murray Barbours study Tuning and temperament,
written as a dissertation in I,,: and published in
I,,I, is the classic text of the English-language tun-
ing literature. It has launched the exploration of
historical temperaments for countless 20th-century
experts and dabblers. But he summarized:
An equal temperament was needed for the keyboard works
of Bach, both for clavier and for organ. It is generally agreed
that Bach tuned the clavier equally. (. . .) The organ works of
Bach show as great a range of modulation as his clavier works
do. (. . .) The compass of Bachs organ works as a whole is
E

C

, 25 degrees! In these works is a host of examples of tri-
ads in remote keys that would have been dreadfully dissonant
in any sort of tuning except equal temperament.
38
Mainstream musicians of the early and middle 20th
century, even the neoclassicists themselves, simply
had no interest in turning back the clock to methods
that had already been superseded by equal tempera-
ment in common practice. A typically dismissive view
comes from Paul Hindemith in 1959: [Unequal tem-
perament is] the consideration of a lazy housemaid,
hiding the gathered dirt under a corner of a rug.
39
Bach himself is partly to blame for sending his
devotees down a wrong path, with the word
wohltemperirt. Werckmeister used that word
frequently enough in his writings that many people
have assumed Bachs preferences to have something
to do with Werckmeister.
40
Christoph Wolff s authoritative biography of
Bach tells readers the following, about tuning:
[In the Inventions/Sinfonias, the Aufrichtige Anleitung] Bach
explores the diatonic range of the tonal system without stray-
ing beyond the traditional framework of the fifteen keys (not
exceeding four sharps or flats) that are playable in unequal
temperament (a system of tuning in which the octave had not
yet been divided into twelve equal semitones) and that endow
each key with a distinct character. (. . .) The revised key
structure of the Aufrichtige Anleitung conforms to the uni-
formly ascending key scheme of The Well-Tempered Clavier,
but illustrates how to differentiate between the conventional
diatonic scheme, on the one hand, and the fully developed
chromatic scheme of twenty-four keys based on the premise of
equal temperament, on the other. Bachs use of Andreas
Werckmeisters term well-tempered (wohl temperirt) indicates
his preference for a slightly modified system of tuning with all
the 3rds sharp, enabling him to play in all twenty-four keys
without losing the characteristic features of individual keys
a loss that occurs if the octave is divided into absolutely equal
semitones (what was to become a new standard would have
been regarded then as a serious drawback).
41
Wolff goes on further to connect Werckmeister,
Bach and scientific progress. By implication, the
reader automatically assumes that Bachs ideas about
tuning grew directly from Werckmeisters work.
Several articles by Peter Williams have brought
out plenty of WerckmeisterBach connections that
have little to do with tuning issues.
42
It is easy for a
casual reader to infer that Bach drew his own tem-
perament preferences from Werckmeister along
with other technical details about organ-building
and maintenance. Williamss articles in Early music
continued the 1980s counter-revolution toward
reacceptance of equal temperament for Bach.
If the 48 was written as a set of instruction pieces for the
young musician learning about temperament (this is the old
chestnut about the well-tempered clavier) then some crucial
things are not made clear to him: chiefly, what exactly does
well-tempered mean (recently interpreted evidence suggests
that it meant equal temperament after all), how is he to tune
by it, and what precisely do the pieces demonstrate about the
24 keys other than how to get your fingers around them?
Furthermore, Williams dismissed tuning as a
cul-de-sac of a subject.
43
The 2003 edition of Williamss magnum opus, his
survey of Bachs organ music, further discourages
the idea of taking unequal tuning seriously. For
example, with regard to BWV566 in E or C, he wrote:
A problem with the E major version being the original is the
harmonies of bars 1617, impossible in any unequal tempera-
ment and unusual in J. S. Bach, early or late. The progressions
themselves, enharmonically notated, are not advanced
(doubled leading notes!), but the passage of keys requires D

major and E major to be equally sweet-tuned.

44
What is the casual reader or organ student to
conclude, but that Bach expected equal temperament
early musi c february 2005 1 1
to solve such confusing problems? Williams himself
has had a brilliant career of comprehensive musical
analysis. He has addressed areas of performance
practice that few others have ventured to explore
so thoroughly, including an article about non-
harmonic notes in harpsichord music.
45
It seems
unlikely, then, that he could have missed anything
important about tuning!
Rudolf Raschs tercentenary article in 1985 pre-
empted the serious investigation of unequal tem-
peraments. He pointed out that Werckmeister
himself by the end of his life lost interest in the
merits of unequal temperaments (which, again,
does not necessarily have any bearing on Bach).
[I]f the temperament is settled in such a way that all 5ths are
tempered . . . by I: of a comma, and carried out and tuned
by an accurate ear, then there will surely be a well-tempered
harmony through the entire circle of 5ths and throughout the
keyboard. Which can be an example of how all pious and
well-tempered people will live and rejoice in a consistent,
equal and eternal harmony with God.
46
It is not too surprising that Werckmeister aban-
doned his own organ temperaments of the 1690s;
the enharmonic notes in them do not circulate well
at all for fully chromatic music, serving double duty
in major 3rds.
47
But, Werckmeister himself turned it
into a moral or spiritual argument against diversity,
rather than a technical issue.
Rasch summed up further:
What is the meaning of the term wohltemperirt in the title of
Bachs collection? If the use of the word in the theoretical
works of Werckmeister and Sorge is followed, it must mean
appropriately tuned. The appropriate tuning for a work
which progresses through all twenty-four keys can be derived
from the given statements by Werckmeister, Neidhardt,
Mattheson, and Sorge: equal temperament. (. . .) [O]ne may
not say that wohltemperirt equals equal-tempered but rather
that wohltemperirt, in the context of music requiring all keys
to be playable, is the equivalent of equal-tempered. (. . .)
The conclusion must be that the quotations refer to the use of
equal temperament, or something not perceptibly different.
None of the authors cited considered Bach to adhere to any
clear system of unequal temperament, although knowledge of
unequal systems was widespread and easily available through
the works of Sorge, Kirnberger, Marpurg, and others. Equal
temperament was becoming the norm for tuning during the
second half of the eighteenth century. If works of Bach like
the WTC asked for a tuning substantially different from equal
temperament, it is at least surprising that no eighteenth-
century author had said so.
48
Dominique Devie in 1990 countered Raschs too-
eager insistence on equal temperament, as reported
in his thorough and clearly reasoned book Le
temprament musical: philosophie, histoire, thorie
et pratique.
49
Rasch in 1985 had presented a clear
summary of 20th-century reconstructions of hypo-
thetical Bach-temperaments (by Kelletat, Kellner,
Barnes and Billeter).
50
Rasch rightly dismissed them
for various reasons, and in doing so he made the
idea of reconstruction itself look like a passing fad
from the 1960s70s. Devie covered that same
ground again, partly in response to Rasch, partly
to take a swing at esotericism (Kellner et al.) as an
unscientific method of inquiry, and partly to present
the state of scholarly research clearly to readers
of French.
One of Bachs best-known pupils, Kirnberger,
was himself a theorist both of composition and
tuning. Kirnbergers temperaments are very easy for
tuning novices to set by ear, or to copy from preset
selections in electronic tuning devices. Naturally
enough, many people have believed that his pub-
lished temperaments offer some reflection of his
teachers practices. However, Kirnberger had a
rather anachronistic goal to represent as many con-
cepts in the simplest fractions possible, in the name
of purity. This included his use of neighbouring
fractions to approximate irrational roots,
51
earning
him the assessment from Marpurg (in his time), and
Barbour and Lindley (in ours), that he was scarcely
prepared at mathematics. In any case, Kirnbergers
own temperaments reflect his own musical/mathe-
matical priorities, not Bachs.
Owen Jorgensen, a hero in the piano-tuning world,
attempted to clarify the well temperament issues:
The systems published in the seventeenth century by Andreas
Werckmeister for the well-tempered clavier are similar to
equal temperament in that they are unrestrictive, circulating
temperaments allowing modulation through all the keys
without encountering wolf intervals. (. . .) These types of
temperaments can no longer be classed as an early form
of equal temperament because the basic philosophy of
twentieth-century equal temperament is to promote atonality
with a neutral homogenized sound that has no color contrasts
and no variety among the keys. Therefore, during the last half
of the twentieth century the original seventeenth-century
systems for the well-tempered clavier have come to be known
as well temperaments.
52
1 2 early musi c february 2005
Unfortunately, this once again implies that Bach
followed Werckmeisters layout of intervals at all. It
also (as Jorgensens own earlier book had done)
restricts the understanding of well temperament
53
to systems that have no wide 5ths, since that would
cause harmonic waste which according to
Jorgensen is undesirable.
54
The author of the New Grove articles, Mark
Lindley, attempted to clarify the issues of both
nomenclature and unequal-temperament practice,
and to call for appropriate scepticism (against the
headstrong presentations of Kellner, especially).
Well-tempered clavier: a term used in particular by Bach to
signify a tuning system suitable for all 24 keys. The fame of
Bachs 48 preludes and fugues (. . .) has led to the mistaken
assumption that wohltemperirt was a standard technical term in
Bachs day to designate a particular tuning; and on the basis of
this assumption a difference of opinion has arisen as to whether
it was equal temperament. (. . .) It is doubtful whether Bach
had any one secret mathematical formula of his own; he was
not so mathematically inclined in matters of theory. (. . .) One
point which emerges from a comprehensive study of Bachs
organ music is that the most heavily tempered major 3rd was
the one above C

/D

. (. . .) [T]he tender effect of the relatively

low intonation, in a good temperament, of D (and, though to
a lesser extent, of A

) when used as the 7th in a dominant 7th

chord is tellingly exploited in such well-known chorale-
preludes as O Mensch bewein (BWV622) and Schmcke dich
(BWV654). To tune really well for Bach, one should think in
such terms and test with some characteristic examples of his
fine use of the various notes of the chromatic scale.
55
Unfortunately, the expectation that D

and A

will
be pitched expressively low is one that has been read
into the music from Lindleys extensive experience
with the basic workmaster shape,
56
and from his
own background as a developer of new temperaments
within that same paradigm.
57
And it does not neces-
sarily have anything to do with the way Bach himself
did organ maintenance, or worked at stringed key-
boards. This dictionary entry also has a glaring
omission. Where the temperament examples are
provided, no temperaments are given that would
cross Lindleys observation about the quality of
C

. Most remarkably, Sorges 1758 temperament

with the Bachian harmonic shape (see below) would
be welcome in the New Grove discussion, at least to
show that 18th-century opinion was not unanimous
about these shapes. Lindley had included it in his
brilliant 1987 article,
58
noting especially Sorges own
assertions about this temperaments suitability for
Chorton organs with Cammerton orchestras. Lindleys
New Grove assertion about the necessarily worst
C

major 3rd therefore comes across as the only

possible game in town, and the only thing that really
varies is the rusticity index of the town (following
Neidhardts various formulations). In short, the
familiar workmaster shape (in various proportions)
is presented as the only viable alternative to equal
temperament. Temperaments that peak at E major
are not judged as presentable.
As he had done in 1985,
59
and again with more
speculative mathematics in 1997,
60
Lindley pre-
sumed that Bachs temperament must have been at
some average position among contemporary solu-
tions, and not extraordinarily different (even
though Bach was, to most accounts, an extraordin-
ary composer and performer). As my analysis in
part 2 of this article will show, Bachs music demands
a temperament shape other than workmaster to
handle the enharmonic equivalences. The averaging
of unworkable solutions merely delivers mediocrity.
Lindley has been careful both in New Grove and in
earlier writings
61
to emphasize that one must listen to
temperaments in action on appropriate instruments
before making any judgments about suitability. I
agree. It is necessary to play all the way through
pieces, and not merely look at the key signature. I
have certainly fallen prey to the latter shortcut myself;
for many years I believed that Bachs Inventions and
Sinfonias celebrate the resources of slightly modified
mean-tone (starting from either or comma;
perhaps even an absolutely regular comma). After
all, the key signatures use the classic 15 keys of
old-fashioned tuning. On a closer look, however, it is
apparent that this book uses 24 different notes: B

to
C

inclusive!
62
A problem from a different angle is in Lindleys
New Grove II Temperaments article, where C. P. E.
Bach is hailed as the 18th-century composer most
likely to have used equal temperament.
63
Lindley is
once again careful to guide the reader away from
inferences that C. P. E. necessarily got this from J. S.
This scholarly scepticism is well placed.
64
However,
C. P. E.s own keyboard treatise of 1753, a compre-
hensive survey of harmony, points out that only most
of the 5ths are tempered in his normal tuning.
65
early musi c february 2005 1 3
That casts doubt on his presumed use of equal tem-
perament. Furthermore, if the (tacit) argument is
from C. P. E.s deployment of flat keys in his music,
such that equal temperament is supposedly the only
reasonable solution, I would point out that it sets up
an improper dichotomy. Yes, C. P. E.s Sonatas in A

major and E minor (w49/2 and 49/3) sound awful in

the workmaster temperaments, due to the visita-
tions of extreme keys. But, when these pieces are
played in his fathers temperament, there are no
such problems and the music has a brilliantly
colourful glow.
66
Herbert Kellners long series of meretricious pre-
sentations had a good side. In the 1970s and 80s
these articles at least raised public awareness of
unequal possibilities, against the unquestioned
mainstream assumptions of equal temperament. In
his enthusiasm and diligence, the scientific invalid-
ity of it all seemed to be a minor inconvenience, as
Kellners invented temperament does sound music-
ally plausible in some (especially 17th-century)
music.
67
It is a fine product, but mislabelled with the
name of Bach wohltemperirt. Furthermore, the
popularity of his work makes it appear (by example)
that the derivation and assessment of temperaments
cannot be properly scientific. His papers also took
the pursuit of proportional beating much too far.
68
At least it is a useful academic exercise for students
of tuning to discern the technical and logical reasons
why his conclusions are less convincing than they
might first appear.
Rasch again:
During the nineteenth century and the first half of the
twentieth, virtually nobody ever doubted the view that Bachs
WTC was intended to be played on an equal-tempered
keyboard, and that wohltemperirt or well-tempered meant
equal-tempered. This view was adopted as self-evident and
not based on any particular research. During the last three
decades [1950s80s] doubts have been cast upon this opinion,
and several musicologists have proposed unequal Bach
temperaments, designed especially to serve the WTC. While
they have looked for a variety of arguments as foundations for
their Bach tunings, the resulting tunings are rather similar
concentric tunings, not unlike Werckmeister III, Kirnberger
III, Vallottis tuning, etc. Other authors have gone no further
than stating that wohltemperirt should mean unequally
tempered with possibilities for all twenty-four keys. The latter
opinion has been shared by many musicians.
69
Again, such careful balance and scepticism of
conclusions is the right scholarly thing to do, leaving
the door slightly ajar to unequal possibilities.
Unfortunately, the rest of the article has already led
readers to assume that the issue is decided in favour
of equal temperament for the WTC. The only
unequal temperaments presented are the usual sus-
pects, in which the traditional mean-tone extremities
are harsher than E major is.
Richard Jones, ending in 1994, prepared a
superlative performance edition of WTC I, updating
Toveys commentaries and providing the most
thorough text-critical study available in English.
70
In the preface, however, for the question of tem-
perament he said little beyond congratulating Rasch
on clearing things up once and for all. Equal tem-
perament was good enough for Werckmeister and
his spiritual and practical followers. Therefore, it
should be good enough for us, too, and why would
Bach oppose that system?
David Ledbetters book about the WTC (2002)
71
provides an admirable summary of tuning back-
ground and practice in Bachs lifetime and into the
next generation. Between this, Devies book, and
Lindleys Stimmung und Temperatur essay, the
history is covered as thoroughly as could be done
without Bachs solution in hand. Ledbetter argues,
however, that tuning is not the main pedagogical
issue of the WTC, and he argues against the taking of
wohltemperirt as a term for any specific solution.
Ledbetters exposition of the 1722 title-page
72
treats
only the words on the page; nothing about the
ornamentale Schnrkel (as the NBA had put it).
Furthermore, he has used Bachs words (phrase by
phrase) as the outline for his entire book (chapter by
chapter). This is an excellent way to organize his
material, but unfortunately it downplays any
information that is not contained in words.
Background about key character is available both
in Ledbetters chapter All the tones and semitones
and more thoroughly in Rita Steblins dissertation.
73
Their reports and assumptions about key character
and colour, however, are from backgrounds of the
workmaster temperament shape. Nothing about
Bachs particular arrangement of key character (as
far as it derives from unequal temperament) is avail-
able either to confirm or refute the present findings.
1 4 early musi c february 2005
Reports about A, E, B, F

, D

, A

and E

majors and C,
F, B

, E

, D

, G

, C

and F

minors would be especially

useful here, if they could be located directly in
Bachs milieu.
In the 2003 paperback reprint of a currently
popular book, Stuart Isacoff in his afterword sum-
marized flatly, The truth is, I dont know what
tunings Bach wanted. Neither does anyone else.
74
His cursory and dismissive treatment of well tem-
peraments in general also leads readers away from
giving them any serious musical consideration. A
main point of his book is that modern science has
allegedly triumphed in giving us equal temperament,
the final solution.
75
Indeed, equal temperament as
a modern standard eliminates important properties
of tonal music, destroying diversity within melody
and harmony.
Many people are scarcely aware that alternative
methods to tune keyboards exist at all. From a back-
ground of pianos and modern organs, the current
satisfaction and success of generic tuning may make
it unattractive to explore more specialized solutions.
Or, to those who do have a bit of experience with
unequal methods, the complexity of the field
quickly becomes daunting, as a minefield for histor-
ians and players. Having two or three favourite
methods in hand (a mean-tone variant or two, and
perhaps a few workmasters, along with some vague
ideas about their historical application to repertory),
they stop exploring the bewildering array of addi-
tional choices. Unequal temperaments are treated
like an outfit of clothing for the day, selected from
very small wardrobes. The tuning might fit the
body shape of the music or it might be horribly
wrong . . . or all music could be forced into the
shapeless uniform of equal temperament (as if all
sharps and flats are created equal). In any case, that
clothing of intonation is treated as a mere after-
thought, not as the place to start building an
interpretation. As for the ways in which intonation
might affect phrasing, timing, tempo and more:
keyboard players generally abdicate responsibility to
understand it, but respond (if at all) to only the
several methods already in the comfort zone. The
standard assumption is, apparently: the funda-
mental key-colours are found in Vallotti and/or
Werckmeister III, and all other temperaments are
merely refinements of that. But Bachs temperament
crosses that line, as its shape handles the keys beyond
three sharps or flats in a profoundly different manner.
The question of harpsichords versus organs versus
clavichords remains wide open. Suppose an accom-
plished composer/performer/improviser had firm
preferences of temperament installed at home or
office (i.e. on harpsichords or clavichords), during
composition and rehearsal. Such a musician would
still be at the mercy of perhaps less than optimal
layouts in performance on organs, or for any gig in
which someone else set up the keyboards. (Let us
remind ourselves: according to his sons report, Bach
insisted on tuning the keyboards himself, as no one
else could get it to his satisfaction.)
76
How much did
or could organ temperaments be altered to suit the
incumbent organists own artistic preferences (from
technical, economic and political angles)? With
small organs of stopped/shaded/sleeved flues it is
relatively easy,
77
but larger instruments with reeds
and coned flues take considerably more work, and
retuning can cause irreversible changes to the pipes.
78
Furthermore, the extant organ literature itself
sometimes reflects a transposition or a transcription
from keyboard tablatures. This again makes it diffi-
cult to discern what a composers original use of
enharmonic notes was in practice . . . or indeed to
know if the music sounded in tune at all, whatever
the ideal intentions may have been. Conclusions
from the scores are therefore only tentative at best.
Still, Bach did publish the Schbler chorales and
Clavierbung III in definitive format, and continued
to update his personal copies of both.
79
We can
make at least some educated guesses about his prac-
tical intonation expectations for organ music, with
his temperament installed on home stringed instru-
ments or small organs.
Finally, the autograph manuscript of the WTC
itself has changed format in the 20th century, most
notably (for present purposes) with damage from
the ink itself, plus the trimming of the title-pages
margins.
80
In all the facsimile reproductions I have
seen in print, the page is cropped very closely to
the edges of the diagram and has lost part of the
strokes, both at the top and the right side. The
standard reproductions make the spirals look merely
decorative, and the proliferation of reproductions
early musi c february 2005 1 5
(all differing in grayscale clarity) make it appear that
the page always had its present tiny margins. In July
2004 John Brombaugh and his associate Doug Leedy
supplied me with a jaw-dropper, a photographic
reproduction from the second edition of Groves
dictionary (190411),
81
before the deterioration and
the change of margins (see illus.I). The tempera-
ment diagram is obviously not marginal at all, or a
crammed-in afterthought, but an integral and
obviously important part of the page, with plenty of
white space around it. The better photograph of the
whole page confirms even more clearly that the
spirals and letter C were Bachs method to convey
information about the required temperament,
either secretly or overtly.
Is the reconstruction of Bachs temperament
today merely a counter-counter-revolution to over-
turn equal temperaments supremacy? I am sure
that some will see the present article in that light. My
concern, however, is simply to take the evidence of
Bachs title-page, and most importantly, Bachs
music itself, with the seriousness and thoroughness it
deserves (see Part :). A viable alternative to equal
temperament does exist in Bachs own handwriting.
Sorge knew such a sound in 1758, whether he got it
from this title-page or more directly from Bach ten
years earlier, or by study of Bachs Leipzig organs (in
Chorton) at any time. The distinctive harmonic
shape is back above ground again now in 2005, and
on the table for discussion.
Origins and destinations
Spitta, Barbour and Ledbetter all cite the anecdote
about the 1706 tuning contest between the Jena
organist Johann Nikolaus Bach and young
Neidhardt. In all three instances the story is told
from the (foregone) assumption that both contes-
tants were attempting to set absolutely equal tem-
perament. Nikolaus Bach won it by setting his set of
8 flutes entirely by ear, while Neidhardt worked on
his similar set from a monochord whose ratios he
had worked out mathematically, matching the
sounds from the string. All three writers apologize
similarly for Neidhardts defeat, saying that the
difficulty must have been in the technical area only.
But look more closely at the conditions of the
contest. I suspect that Neidhardt did achieve equal
temperament or something indistinguishably close
to it, while Nikolaus focused on a temperament that
seems equal to all but the most finicky keyboard
geeks, but is more musically pleasing (more sensitive
to the behaviours of the natural harmonic series).
The 1722 Bach temperament seems equal in effect;
I have confirmed this by playing it to (and with)
many friends and colleagues, some of whom are
professional instrumentalists and singers. The tem-
perament is so suave that it is equal, in musical
context . . . unless one listens very closely with the
technical skills of a keyboard tuner by ear. One must
play chords and melodic bits slowly in isolation, and
explain exactly what to listen for, for these differ-
ences to be noticed in practice. Played in the context
of tonal music, the differences among the keys are
audible, but come across as different psychological
effects rather than anything especially noticeable
in pitch differences. This makes the temperament,
as a whole, seem almost magically alive, while not
remarkably unequal. Such a listening experiment as
this should be confirmed more scientifically, of
course, with all manner of listeners. The point is:
reading the Nikolaus/Neidhardt story with this per-
spective in my ears and mind, I believe that the
Bach temperament was already a family heirloom
before Sebastian wrote it down in 1722.
The judgement in favour of Nikolaus was, finally,
from a professional singer who found the resulting
B

minor easier to sing with, ahead of Neidhardts.

That is an excellent key for such a test (along with
touching on everything else along the way), both
with respect to melodic intervals and the behaviours
of the triads and 7ths. The B

minor tonic is calm,

the dominant F major is the most resonant triad
anywhere, and the nearby F minor, A

major, D

major, E

major, C minor and diminished chords all

have pleasing glows to them. Sharp keys are less
problematic anyway, and would have less bearing on
close decisions in such a contest; musical ears can
tolerate more deviation from too-sharp sharps than
from too-flat flats. (To understand this in practice,
set up a keyboard in regular comma and play
through music in all keys. Wrongly spelled notes
such as D

, A

and E

are quite high, but not as

1 6 early musi c february 2005
bothersome as A

, D

, G

and C

.) To ears accus-
tomed to the sounds and limitations of regular or
mildly irregular layouts from E

to G

, the Bach solu-

tion of the flat side of the resources seems like magic,
and comes across as equal temperament.
If Nikolaus in 1706 already had the Bach family
temperament, is it possible he got it from his own
father, Christoph, the Eisenach organist whose
music Sebastian revered for its harmonic innova-
tion and expressivity?
82
Nikolaus himself went on to
become an innovative instrument-builder, the first
Bach to use the famous BACH musical motive in
compositions, and by the late 1740s the oldest living
relative of Sebastian. Admittedly, this family tem-
perament suggestion is speculation: and a conjec-
ture that should be tested by better historians than I.
The search for this temperaments origin should be
easier now that we know how it sounds, and having
this (now) documented temperament as an alterna-
tive to the various Werckmeister and Bendeler
options of the 1690s.
Where did it go? The firmest expert witness is the
writing of tuning expert Georg Andreas Sorge in
1758. He had joined the Mizler society in 1747, the
same month as Johann Sebastian Bach. His own
writings about music theory and tuning, of the
1740s, promoted equal temperament, Neidhardt lay-
outs, and several of his own; he also in 1744 cited a
Pythagorean comma version of the shape we know
as Kirnberger III more than 30 years ahead of
Kirnbergers syntonic comma presentation.
83
All
those unequal temperaments have the common
Werckmeister/Neidhardt shape which merely tames
but does not change the traditional mean-tone rela-
tionships (as to which keys are worst: A

, D

, F

and B
majors). May we call that shape workmaster?
But, remarkably, in 1758 Sorge has jettisoned all
that and promotes only two temperaments: mathe-
matically equal temperament, and a new one whose
shape treats the E major area the same way Bachs
does!
84
On closer inspection from the perspective of
Bachs temperament, it becomes clear: eight of the
twelve notes in it are identical with Bachs. Sorge, the
equal temperament fan, has made subtle and under-
standable changes to the other four. By lowering F
(by comma) and raising E and B ( each,
again pure with one another), he slightly widened
each of the major 3rds FA, CE and GB (which
also tames the extremities of D

F, BD

and EG

accordingly). The lowering of F also converts B

F to
be narrow rather than wide, i.e. removing its
distinctiveness. Finally, the C

/D

is repositioned to
be mean as a major 3rd between A and the new F. (It
was also such a mean in Bachs, with the higher F.)
The net result of all this is that Sorges 1758 tempera-
ment has the same harmonic shape as Bachs (see
illus.,), but is slightly gentler in those contours:
85
more like equal temperament. In summary, Sorge
by 1758 had realized that the Bach shape is the only
unequal one that really works for tonal music (and
especially for Chorton organs), even though Sorge
himself preferred equal temperament in theory.
86
3 Bachs temperament in Chorton (organ tuned a tone higher than the orchestra), reinterpreted as it sounds in
Cammerton to the players and singers reading their parts a tone higher.
early musi c february 2005 1 7
I have a further hypothesis that the 1722 Bach
temperament, or at least something with the same
shape (may we call it the brook shape?), remained
C. P. E. Bachs career temperament: and was also the
ordinary temperament at the royal court during his
tenure there. In his own treatise he remarked that
only most of the 5ths are tempered in his ordinary
practice (and eight or nine of twelve is most), and
more importantly, his musical examples in the book
(and his broader keyboard oeuvre) work beautifully
in this tuning.
The flute treatise by Quantz confirms this court
hypothesis. Quantz presents an exemplary Adagio,
87
to teach the keyboard accompanist how to play
dynamics expressively by the harmonic tendencies
of dissonances and consonance, listening to the
sound of every moment. The piece includes 77
dynamic markings in its 45 bars. I have played this
piece using Bachs tuning and noticed that the disso-
nant/consonant content of the harmony matches
his dynamic scheme, with regard to the treatment of
tension, resolution and surprise. Readers are invited
to explore this same exercise, to hear the dynamic
effects as they derive directly from the quality of
intonation, the temperaments subtle irregularities.
In more equalized temperaments than Bachs, or in
regular comma, these directional tendencies in
the sound are minimized, and Quantzs notated
dynamics can seem artificial and overdone. Quantz
himself worked directly with at least three former
pupils of J. S. Bach (Johann Friedrich Agricola,
Christoph Nichelmann and C. P. E. Bach), giving
him plenty of opportunity to learn and play with the
Bach temperament.
Further confirmation of the Bach temperament at
court is Sebastians Das musikalisches Opfer. The key-
board ricercars are adventurous enough that they
have caused Lindley (several times) to assert in print
that only equal temperament will do. However, they
too work without problem in Bachs temperament
(or Sorges 1758), and draw interesting colours from
keyboard instruments. Furthermore, the Canon per
tonos has some startling effects when played by or
with a keyboard tuned Bachs way. As the kings
theme and its accompaniment rise through C minor,
D minor and E minor, things seem normal enough
(while markedly different in all three). Into F

minor,
G

minor and B

minor the sound is increasingly

disturbing: so shall the kings fame increase. Is such
a hidden political statement, perhaps, part of the rea-
son why the court never acknowledged the gift of this
book, and Bach had it printed at his own expense to
hand out to his friends? In Part : we will explore
more fully such suggestions of meaning hidden in
the sound.
Ensemble music
Because most of Bachs naturals are tuned in the nor-
mal 18th-century regular temperament ( comma),
instrumentalists and singers find those pitches
exactly where expected. B and the five accidentals are
placed more expressively: increasingly sharp in the
sequence BF

. Those pitches are

smoothly connected to one another in pure or nearly
pure 5ths, and easy to find by intuition and experi-
ence. (This is better demonstrated in practice than
described in print.) As several colleagues have
already reported to me from their concert perfor-
mances, and as I have found by playing through
Bachs violin sonatas with a friend, this temperament
is remarkably easy to use in ensemble, switching
from Vallottis and other methods to which they
were accustomed. The goal is not necessarily to
match every pitch on the keyboard exactly,
88
but
rather to play as naturally and comfortably as possi-
ble, being free to explore expressive nuances and not
worry about intonation at all, consciously. In
December I used Bachs tuning secretly for the con-
tinuo of Handels Messiah, and noticed that it con-
forms to the instinctive way string players handle
intonation. No one remarked about the tuning at all,
but only that the orchestral and continuo playing
seemed especially beautiful and expressive.
What about the accompaniment of vocal works in
situations that originally had a Chorton/Cammerton
split, with the keyboard player reading from a part
notated a whole step below the orchestras?
89
Most
obviously, this group of compositions includes
Bachs vocal music from Leipzig. How well does
Bachs temperament fare in this situation, where the
organ is treated as a transposing instrument in D?
90
Illus.3 shows Bachs temperament in Chorton, i.e.
sounding a tone higher than the rest of the orchestra
in Cammerton. For example, as the organist reads
1 8 early musi c february 2005
and plays in D major, the orchestra reads and plays
in E major.
91
This doubly labelled graph shows that
in Bachs expectation the Cammerton G and D major
are the best in tune (which is not surprising for a
string-based ensemble, and trumpets in D), and the
Cammerton keys of F

, D

and B major are the worst:

to be used least frequently in concerted vocal music.
As a modern practical compromise, if the
keyboard player(s) must read from scores or parts
that have been transposed to Cammerton,
92
the
following D temperament can be used to realign
the transposition of Affekt. That is, it restores all the
intervals to their proper positions from the orches-
tras and singers perspective.
93
This version is
derived from Bachs diagram by imagining the note
D in place of C (where Bach wrote it, second from
the right) and taking the series of 5ths from there, as
before.
GDAEBF

comma; F

pure; E

FC
I: comma
At the outside ends the resulting 5th CG is
comma wide. All the other 5ths are narrow or pure,
as shown.
For an electronic tuning device: in cents values
deviating from equal temperament, reckoning from
A rather than C (so the A will match exactly the
orchestras gospel A), that is:
C (0), C

(4), D (2), E

(0), E (2), F (0), F

(6),
G (4), G

(2), A (0), B

(0), B (4)
Notice that this transposed temperament (in D)
is especially easy starting from modern equal tem-
perament, as the notes C, E

, F, A and B

are all in
their normal modern positions according to elec-
tronic tuners.
94
Wind players should tune either to the keyboards
A or to the tonic of the composition.
95
The string
players should tune open strings to the keyboards
regular comma GDAE, and note the irregular
(slightly lower) C.
It should be emphasized here: this modern trans-
position of Bachs temperament into D is for accom-
paniment only, to re-create the performance sound of
the Chorton/Cammerton situation (from an assump-
tion that Bachs organs, pitched in Chorton, were
tuned in his own temperament).
96
I have played
through both the B minor Mass and St Matthew
Passion in this; and although I have known this
music as a player and listener for 20 years, it is like
hearing it for the first time.
This remarkable temperament solves the classic
problem of having the continuo organist play in
Chorton, while the orchestra and singers reading in
Cammerton can find pitches easily and be centred
in the most resonant keys for themselves. Of course,
for Bach himself this was not a problem as he
already knew the layout of his instrumentsand his
harmonic resourcesbefore writing the music. He
took advantage of this transposing situation, letting
it aid the shape of the drama in his choices of keys
and surprising chords, rather than treating it as an
inconvenience or hardship.
This D version of Bachs temperament should
also be useful to the student of harmony and coun-
terpoint, when using Bach chorales (C. P. E. Bach/
Riemenschneider) as a textbook. If it can be
ascertained that a particular chorale came from a
Chorton/Cammerton situation (especially from the
Leipzig cantatas), a play-through in this tempera-
ment reveals the crunchinessor notof any par-
ticular moment of harmony arising from motion of
independent lines. Some dissonances that seem
excruciating in equal temperament are hardly
beyond mild here, especially when used in weak
metric positions in the bar, while other moments
may stand out as surprisingly brisk. That is: the
composition student is not getting an accurate
assessment of Affekt, and the overall behaviour of
counterpoint, by merely playing through Bach
chorales on equal-tempered pianos and organs.
Chorale harmonization is not independent of
tuning issues. Analysis of text-setting and linear
motion should take this into account: the Bach
chorales have musical secrets (invisible on the
page but palpable in the sound) waiting to be
heard again. Vocal and theory/composition instruc-
tors might set up a rehearsal piano or harpsichord in
this D version, to explore these features in Bachs
vocal music.
Part 2 of this article will discuss some of the impli-
cations of this discovery on our understanding of
Bachs keyboard music. A good deal of additional
supporting evidence also appears on the Early music
website, at http://www.em.oupjournals.org.
early musi c february 2005 1 9
In this exciting project I wish to thank
especially the following individuals for
discussions, arguments, experimentation,
patience, research assistance, and
suggested improvements as the article
took shape. After my wife and daughter,
the list is alphabetical, and I apologize in
advance if I have forgotten anyone!
Gloria Rhodes, Afton Rhodes-Lehman;
John Brombaugh, Bradley Brookshire,
Owen Byer, Matthew Dirst, Ross Duffin,
Dale Gedcke, Uri Golomb, David
Gordon, Keith Hill, Robert Hill, David
Hitchin, Evan Jones, Doug Leedy,
Rebecca Lloyd, Andrew Manze, James
Morrison, Veva Mumaw, Debra Nagy,
Johan Norrback, Ibo Ortgies, John Pike,
Paul Poletti, Bruce Shull, David
Smucker, Eric Stoltzfus, Philip Stoltzfus,
George Taylor, Yo Tomita, Jennifer
Ulrich, Robert Utterback, Anna Vriend,
Kristian Wegscheider and Craig Wright.
My gratitude goes also to the authors of
the books and articles in this arcane and
often thankless field of inquiry (keyboard
tuning), and to the teachers who
prepared me for this project many years
ago; and above all, to Johann Sebastian
Bach. The sound of his music makes all
this work worthwhile.
1 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, c.1774, in
a letter to Johann Nikolaus Forkel:
recounting the working methods of his
father and only teacher. The new Bach
reader, ed. H. T. David, A. Mendel and
C. Wolff (New York, 1998), no.395;
Bach-Dokumente, iii (1972), no.803.
Forkels resulting biography of Bach is
also included in The new Bach reader.
2 The appropriately-tuned keyboard
is another good title, suggested in
R. Rasch, Does well-tempered mean
equal-tempered?, Bach, Handel,
Scarlatti tercentenary essays, ed. P.
Williams (Cambridge, 1985),
pp.293310.
3 Ordinary temperament was, and
remains, a practical tuning strategy:
while preserving the naturals of a
regular mean-tone temperament, the
tuner tastefully raises the sharps and/or
lowers the flats slightly from their
mean-tone positions until the circle
nearly meets itself, and therefore all
tonalities are usable with subtle
distinctions among them. Bachs
tuning specifies that amount of tasteful
adjustment precisely, and calls also for
a slightly raised B.
4 The first public performance using
this temperament, to my knowledge,
was Robert Hills broadcast on Swiss
radio, 6 May 2004, a few weeks after I
notified him of my discovery. He
played a programme of Bach, Handel
and Scarlatti on his Cristofori-style
fortepiano. It was also used on both
organs in a performance of Bachs
St John Passion by Apollos Fire, June
2004, set secretly by Ross Duffin, who
told the other performers only that it
was an experiment with a new version
of a well temperament. Duffin
reported to me: The reviewer here
referred to the orchestra as well-
tuned. In other words, it sounded
great. (. . .) The musical advantages of
the temperament are immediately clear
to anyone who has tried it, and the
impression on listeners is remarkable
as well.
5 The beat rate is the deliberate
impurity of two notes forming an
almost-pure interval. Upper harmonics
of both notes have a frequency that is
almost identical, at some point several
octaves above the fundamental
frequency, and the discrepancy sets up
an interference pattern audible as a
slow rhythmic wavering. Tuners count
these wobbles to determine precise
amounts of tempering. Two
consecutive 5ths of equal size (equal
amount of tempering) have beat rates
in a 3:2 ratio; for example, GD
(flanking middle C) beats - as fast as
the DA above it, like duplets against
triplets.
6 The historical debate continues: does
(and did) mean-tone refer only to a
regular quarter syntonic comma, or to
all the regular layouts generated by a
consistent size of 5th? And, can
divisions of the Pythagorean comma be
considered mean-tone at all, having
nothing to do with ? But all regular
temperaments do place D as a mean
tone within whatever CE major 3rd
has been established, and in that sense
they (and Pythagorean tuning by pure
5ths, and equal temperament) are
mean-tone layouts, as far back as
Grammateus. This problem of
nomenclature complicates the tuning
literature considerably.
7 In this case, the word Pythagorean
comes from the ancient system of
tuning only by pure 5ths.
8 The cents measurement, invented by
Alexander John Ellis in the 19th
century, is a modern logarithmic
method of describing temperaments,
with an assignment of 1,200 equal
portions in the octave. That is, a cent is
the 1200th root of 2.
9 And, since the grain of cents is not
fine enough for sufficient accuracy, we
see the inanities of hundredths and
thousandths of cents, as decimals.
10 The twelfth 5th, actually an
enharmonic diminished 6th, absorbs
whatever slack remains as the circle
meets the beginning note.
11 That is, the starting note and the
direction of travel from each note to
the next in the tuning process.
12 That is, how well does the twelfth
5th sound like a pure 5th or like any of
the other 5ths? If it is reasonably near
to those, enough not to offend the ear,
the circle of 5ths closes: and the
temperament may be used for music in
any key.
13 The series of 5ths is the normal
method to tune keyboard instruments
by ear, listening to the quality of each
5th and the quality of the resulting
major 3rds.
14 The Bach reader, ed. H. T. David
and A. Mendel (New York, rev. edn
1966), pp.39093; New Bach reader, ed.
David, Mendel and Wolff, no.214;
Bach-Dokumente, iii, no.183.
15 New Bach reader, ed. David, Mendel
and Wolff, p.436 (Forkels biography,
last page of chapter 3). Such a time
limit is not an exaggeration; it is easily
Bradley Lehman is a harpsichordist, organist, composer and software engineer. His doctoral degree
(University of Michigan, 1994) is in harpsichord performance, and he also holds masters degrees in
both historical musicology and the other early keyboard instruments. bpl@umich.edu
20 early musi c february 2005
within reach of an experienced tuner
(as confirmed by my own practice, and
by interview of colleagues), provided
the bearing plan is simple enough to be
set quickly.
16 See especially New Bach reader, ed.
David, Mendel and Wolff, no.363;
Bach-Dokumente, iii, no.815; Bach
reader, ed. David and Mendel,
pp.44750; and Marpurg versus
Kirnberger: the tuning controversy in
Germany, in R. Steblin, A history of key
characteristics in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries (Rochester,
NY, 2/2002).
17 C. Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: the
learned musician (New York, 2000),
pp.21830.
18 Christoph Wolff, Invention,
composition, and the improvement of
nature: apropos Bach the teacher and
practical philosopher, The keyboard in
Baroque Europe, ed. C. Hogwood
(Cambridge, 2003), p.135.
19 This observation of the similarity of
Bachs and Kuhnaus wording is from
J. Lester, The recognition of major and
minor keys in German theory:
16801730, Journal of music theory, xxii
(1978), pp.65103.
20 It also perhaps gave the Leipzig
authorities an aural notice of the
system he intended to install on the
Leipzig organs.
21 Obviously, one must also come to
this with a reasonable practical
background in the listening
techniques, and the knowledge of
what was normal in Bachs milieu: the
types of regular and modified-regular
keyboard layouts in their everyday
work.
22 I shall return to this in Part :, in the
discussion of Sauveur, Tosi et al.
23 Sorge also advocated such attention
to 3rds of the octave, rather than any
axis of duality CF

(or elsewhere).
24 The SC interpretation of Bachs
drawing is given in the supplementary
materials on the website. I thank Ross
Duffin and Debra Nagy for discussion
of this, reading an early draft of the
present work: they helped me to discard
my own preference for the SC reading
and to focus better on the PC reading.
25 Even without this information
concerning the beat rate of FA, the
necessity of comma as the basic
tempering of the naturals can be
inferred. It is obvious both from
historical context and through trial-
and-error experimentation with the
pattern.
26 As noted above, C. P. E. Bach cited
his fathers dislike of dry,
mathematical stuff. Bachs dislike of
written expression is also remarkable.
We have already seen his thorough-
bass remarks here. His treatise of
counterpoint, Die Kunst der Fuge, has
no explication in words; the points are
made entirely by musical example.
And, instead of trying to defend
himself or his art against public
criticism, he hired the university
professor Birnbaum to represent him
(New Bach reader, ed. David, Mendel
and Wolff, pp.337ff.; Christoph Wolff,
Essays, chapter 32; Wolff, Bach: the
learned musician, pp.431ff.).
27 See the supplementary materials on
the website www.em.oupjournals.org
28 A practical trick: it is easiest to hear
and count this beat rate accurately
using a major 10th, Fa.
29 For a 440 Hz: ce has 4.5 and
f a has 3.0 beats (double the
metronome speeds of 134 and 89).
For a415 Hz: ce has 4.2 and
f a has 2.8 beats (double the
metronome speeds of 126 and 84).
Beats are the audible interference
patterns in the harmonics (overtones)
of any two notes tuned almost to a
pure interval. When a pure interval
is made slightly narrow or wide, the
beats increase in speed: and the
intervals out-of-tuneness can be
calibrated precisely by listening to
their tempo.
30 David Gordon and Andrew Manze
used this temperament in the English
Concerts tour of the USA, and at the
Wigmore Hall, during October and
November 2004. They chose it for its
all-purpose musical properties in the
continuo, even though their tour
repertory included no Bach! This, to
me, is a particularly strong
endorsement of its musicality.
31 Taylor & Boody Organbuilders,
Staunton Virginia, Opus I. Goshen
College Music Center, Goshen Indiana,
my undergraduate alma mater.
I inspected this organ in November
and December, playing the formerly
problematic Bach repertoire
(see Part :). A recording will be
available.
32 Bach-Dokumente, i (1963), no.152.
33 Neue Bach-Ausgabe, V/6.1 (WTC 1),
Kritischer Bericht (1989), p.21.
34 Neue Bach-Ausgabe, V/6.1 (WTC 1),
pp.xivxv.
35 Bach reader, ed. David and Mendel,
p.85.
36 New Bach reader, ed. David,
Mendel and Wolff, no.90.
37 New Bach reader, ed. David, Mendel
and Wolff, no.88. Anna Magdalena,
herself an excellent musician, of course
knew how the home keyboard(s)
sounded in her husbands everyday
tuning. So did the children, hearing
music all the time. To them, this would
all simply have been the normal way
that keyboards were to be tuned; there
would have been no need to write the
method down, and it would not
necessarily have been a secret, anyway.
When the tuning sounds so right all
the time, so unproblematic, why ever
early musi c february 2005 21
question how its done, or why it works
as well as it does?
38 J. M. Barbour, Tuning and
temperament: a historical survey (East
Lansing, 1951; new Dover edition,
:oo), pp.1956.
39 P. Hindemith, Komponist in seiner
Welt (Zurich, 1959), p.114; cited in B.
Billeter, Anweisung zum Stimmen von
Tasteninstrumenten in verschiedenen
Temperaturen (Berlin, 1979), p.12
(translation mine).
40 A good summary of
Werckmeisters usage is provided in
Rasch, Does well-tempered mean
equal-tempered?, pp.293300.
41 Wolff, Bach: the learned musician,
pp.22830.
42 P. Williams, Was Johann Sebastian
Bach an organ expert or an acquisitive
reader of Andreas Werckmeister?
Journal of the American Musical
Instrument Society, xi (1985), pp.3854,
itself an expansion of P. Williams,
J. S. BachOrgelsachverstndiger
unter dem Einfluss Andreas
Werckmeisters?, Bach-Jahrbuch, lxviii
(1982), pp.13142.
43 P. Williams, J. S. Bachs
Well-tempered clavier: a new approach,
Early music, xi (1983), pp.4652,
3329, at pp.478.
44 P. Williams, The organ music of
J. S. Bach (Cambridge, 2/2003), p.160.
Even with Bachs temperament
temporarily out of the picture, that
analysis is questionable. In less suave
temperaments there is a better chance
that both D

(enharmonically E

) and
E major triads will be decent, for the
E major version, than that both B and
C major are.
45 P. Williams, The harpsichord
acciaccatura: theory and practice in
harmony, 16501750, Musical
quarterly, liv (1968), pp.50323.
46 Andreas Werckmeister recanting
his previous work with unequal
temperaments, in his (posthumous)
Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse
(Quedlinburg, 1707), p.110; cited in
Rasch, Does well-tempered mean
equal-tempered?, p.299.
47 Werckmeisters own published
harpsichord temperament of 1698
addresses those enharmonic concerns
directly and explicitly, focusing on the
qualities of major 3rds. Still, in
practice, his D

F results as the worst

3rd of the 12. See the discussion in the
excellent primer, P. Poletti,
Temperaments for dummies (Utrecht,
2001), available as a PDF download
from www.polettipiano.com.
48 Rasch, Does well-tempered
mean equal-tempered?, pp.3013.
49 D. Devie, Le temprament musical:
philosophie, histoire, thorie et pratique
(Bziers, 1990).
50 The Barnes, Kellner and Kelletat
temperaments are readily available in
J. Barnes, Bachs keyboard
temperament: internal evidence from
the Well-tempered clavier, Early music,
vii (1979), pp.23649, which includes a
lesser-known earlier temperament, as a
footnote. The Bernhard Billeter temp-
erament (in his Anweisung zum
Stimmen von Tasteninstrumenten in
verschiedenen Temperaturen) is
probably the least known of any of
these. The temperament he proposed is
essentially a reverse-engineered version
of Kirnberger II (the one with the
especially narrow 5ths, DAE),
slightly moderated to syntonic
comma, and then read hypothetically
back into the practice of Bach as an
alleged modification from Silbermann.
51 For example: and -
approximate the square root of
from opposite sides.
52 O. Jorgensen, Tuning (East Lansing,
1990), p.9.
53 Well temperament is un-
grammatical, but has become
common usage.
54 Jorgensens references to harmonic
waste in Tuning are too numerous to
mention individually.
55 M. Lindley, Well-tempered clavier,
New Grove II.
56 By workmaster I mean the
Werckmeister/Neidhardt/Vallotti
shape: temperaments that preserve the
expectation from mean-tone layouts
that F

major or C

major will have the

most discordant major 3rds. My pun
on Werckmeisters name also implies
that something is not quite right about
the shape, like trying to use a cheap set
of imported tools that do not quite fit
the job requirements.
22 early musi c february 2005
57 See, for example, Lindleys
Grosvenor temperament in the
supplementary materials on the
website.
58 M. Lindley, Stimmung und
Temperatur, Hren, Messen und
Rechnen in der frhen Neuzeit, ed.
F. Zaminer (Darmstadt, 1987),
pp.109331.
59 M. Lindley, J. S. Bachs tuning,
Musical times, cxxvi (Dec 1985),
pp.71216.
60 M. Lindley, A quest for Bachs
ideal style of organ temperament,
Stimmungen in 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,
Michaelsteiner Konferenzberichte, lii,
(Michaelstein, 1997), pp.4567.
61 M. Lindley, Lutes, viols and
temperaments (Cambridge, 1984);
Lindley, J. S. Bachs tuning. Also, the
previous incarnations of Lindleys New
Grove Temperaments and Well-
tempered clavier articles included
similar observations.
62 Notably, the F minor Sinfonia
employs A and B

, B and C

, E and F

;
and the E major pieces call for well-
placed extreme sharps, far beyond E
major itself.
63 M. Lindley, Temperaments, New
Grove II.
64 Lindley himself has taken a strong
and consistently firm scholarly stance
against the adoption of equal
temperament for J. S. Bachs music.
Therefore, any notion that C. P. E.
inherited equal temperament from his
father must be handled carefully. The
present article offers a third way out of
that particular dilemma.
65 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in
Versuch ber die wahre Art das Clavier
zu spielen (Berlin, 1753), paragraph 14
of the introduction, writes that only
most of the 5ths (meisten Quinten)
are tempered. Is this perhaps a
description of the same temperament
he learned from his father, his only
teacher: with nine tempered 5ths and
three pure? All the keys are musically
usable, equally, without any startling
anomalies; could that be what he
meant as gleich rein? His own
compositional style, with its bold
harmonic surprises and cross-relations,
is well served by the key colours and
subtleties of his fathers temperament.
In the Versuch it appears that C. P. E.
is merely contrasting the modern
system (Wohltemperirt) with earlier
ideals of regular mean-tone. In light of
this, and on the musical evidence of
playing through his compositions, I do
not believe that C. P. E. ever
abandoned this in favour of equal
temperament.
66 Again, there is no way to describe
this adequately in words. It must be
experienced at the keyboard.
67 Kellners temperament is at its best
in the music of Buxtehude, Scheidt and
Scheidemann.
68 Kellner promoted the mathematical
truism that among regular PC 5ths,
the resulting major 3rd beats at the
same rate as the 5ths. But this is of no
value when listening to music, since it
would be audible only if the three
notes of a triad were played exactly
simultaneously, and if nothing else
were happening during such a
sustained triad. It is useful information
during the tuning process itself (by
ear), and perhaps also to mystics; but,
the 2:1 proportional beating of regular
PC has just as much (or little)
significance. Kellners over-promotion
of the proportional beating in the B
major triad of his temperament is
more of the same: it is all salesmanship,
the assignment of spiritual meaning to
mathematical truisms, and inaudible
during musical practice.
69 Rasch, Does well-tempered
mean equal-tempered?, p.308.
70 The well-tempered clavier,
Part I, ed. R. Jones (London: ABRSM,
1994).
71 D. Ledbetter, Bachs Well-tempered
clavier: the 48 preludes and fugues
(New Haven, 2002), chap.2 Well-
tempered.
72 Ledbetter, Bachs Well-tempered
clavier, pp.12.
73 R. Steblin, A history of key
characteristics in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, covers the
MarpurgKirnberger debates, and
Mattheson and many others, but
provides nothing about Sorge.
74 S. Isacoff, Temperament: how music
became a battleground for the great
minds of Western civilization (London,
2002), p.249.
early musi c february 2005 23
75 Isacoff, Temperament, p.6; the form
of words is horribly ironic.
76 New Bach reader, ed. David,
Mendel and Wolff, no.394; Bach-
Dokumente, iii, no.801.
77 I have tuned numerous continuo
organs and maintained small church
instruments, and I assume that other
professional organists of the 17th and
18th centuries probably had more
practised skill at this than I do.
78 The most drastic changes of
temperament require trimming or
addition of pipe material.
79 See C. Wolff, Bachs personal copy
of the Schbler Chorales, in J. S. Bach
as organist, ed. G. B. Stauffer and E.
May (London, 1986), pp.12132. Also C.
Wolff, Bach: essays on his life and music
(Cambridge, MA, 1991), pp.17886. For
Clavierbung III, see the remarks in
Williams, The organ music of J. S. Bach,
p.387.
80 The preservation process is
described in Ledbetter, Bachs Well-
tempered clavier, p.6.
81 Groves dictionary of music and
musicians (London, 190411), i, p.152.
82 See Spitta.
83 Devie, Le temprament musical,
p.142.
84 Devie, Le temprament musical,
pp.1423; Lindley, Stimmung und
Temperatur, pp.2726.
85 Also, the tetrachords and
hexachords are not absolutely unique
any more, as Bachs are (see Table I
and Part : of this article), but most keys
are melodically different from one
another.
86 Another possibility: Bach himself
may have refined the temperament
thus in practice, between 1722 and any
encounters with Sorge in the 1740s.
87 Johann Joachim Quantz, Versuch
einer Anweisung die Flte traversiere zu
spielen (1752), trans. E. R. Reilly as On
playing the flute (Boston, MA, 2/1985),
pp.2578.
88 See especially Ross Duffins web
essay, Why I hate Vallotti at
http://music.cwru.edu/duffin/Vallotti/,
and B. Haynes, Beyond temperament:
non-keyboard intonation in the 17th
and 18th centuries, Early music, xix
(1991), pp.35781.
89 The extant parts are listed in the
appendices of L. Dreyfus, Bachs
continuo group: players and practices in
his vocal works (Cambridge, MA, 1987).
90 B. Haynes, Questions of tonality in
Bachs cantatas: the woodwind
perspective, Journal of the American
Musical Instrument Society, xii (1986).
The article is an excellent presentation
of these specific issues, including
commentary about the available
editions and the transpositions that
have been done in them.
91 Facsimile excerpts of the autograph
score from the cantata BWV49 (1726,
Leipzig) appear in Dreyfus, Bachs
continuo group, pp.656. I have
performed this cantata in an ensemble
where the keyboards were tuned to
Vallottis temperament, and the organ
part was transposed to E instead of
Bachs notated D. The orchestra had
difficulty matching pitches in this
situation, especially where the music
ventures into double sharps. If Bachs
temperament had been available to us
at the time, the orchestra would have
been tuning to the sound of Bachs D
major, which is considerably easier.
92 In the standard modern
performance materials for Bachs
vocal works, this has already been
done. Bachs normal transposing
situation is now abnormal for modern
players! As Haynes remarks in
Questions of tonality in Bachs
cantatas, this transposition in modern
editions sometimes makes
performance of these pieces more
difficult than it should be.
93 This is a subtle distinction, to be
sure, but the aim here is to restore the
expected sound of Bachs ensemble
overall, as closely as possible, in the
artificial situation where the organ is
no longer a transposing instrument.
94 This is equivalent to the
observation (in Part : of this article)
that the subset E

, G, A

, B

, D

in the
untransposed version is a set of five
notes from equal temperament. The
comfort of singers and orchestral
players is a commodity not to be
underestimated! Musicians need a
familiar terrain on which to do their
best work, being most freely expressive.
95 In Bachs church services, the
orchestra tuned quietly during an
organ prelude in an appropriate key.
96 See also Sorges 1758 temperament,
referenced above.
Advertisers!
Contact Jane Beeson on +44 (0) 1652 678230
or at
em.adverts@btopenworld.com
24 early musi c february 2005