R ussell Stinson, Josephine Emily Brown Professor of Music and College Organist at Lyon College, has already published extensively about the reception of J. S. Bach’s compositions. A key example is his 2006 book, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms (Oxford University Press). Yet while much of Stinson’s earlier writing focuses on the reception of Bach’s works in the nineteenth century, the current volume considers how Bach’s pieces have been heard, experienced, performed, and perceived by four major composers. In the process, Stinson sheds new light not only on how Bach’s music was transmitted, but also on the personal reactions of composers to Bach’s music. This method provides as much information about Bach as about the composers under consideration. Stinson describes his aims in the introduction:
{"title":"Bach's Legacy: The Music as Heard by Later Masters by Russell Stinson (review)","authors":"Erinn Knyt","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0018","url":null,"abstract":"R ussell Stinson, Josephine Emily Brown Professor of Music and College Organist at Lyon College, has already published extensively about the reception of J. S. Bach’s compositions. A key example is his 2006 book, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms (Oxford University Press). Yet while much of Stinson’s earlier writing focuses on the reception of Bach’s works in the nineteenth century, the current volume considers how Bach’s pieces have been heard, experienced, performed, and perceived by four major composers. In the process, Stinson sheds new light not only on how Bach’s music was transmitted, but also on the personal reactions of composers to Bach’s music. This method provides as much information about Bach as about the composers under consideration. Stinson describes his aims in the introduction:","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"355 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47903735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Most lutenists still tune in equal temperament, despite all the evidence that the best lutenists in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries tuned in some version of meantone temperament. Baroque keyboard players, on the other hand, routinely tune in unequal temperaments, usually one of the many irregular keyboard temperaments available to them. Once the frets are arranged, the lute is extremely flexible in terms of pitch choice, whereas the keyboard is not. The lute's ability to play the same pitch in multiple locations and other idiomatic features allow it to access many key areas with few compromises. Nevertheless, many lutenists still mistakenly believe that regular unequal temperaments such as meantone temperaments are impossible or extremely difficult on the lute, despite all the informational and technological resources available today that facilitate the arrangement of meantone temperaments on lutes. Thus, they do not enjoy the many sonic benefits that unequal temperaments provide.The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that by understanding a few basic principles, first on lutes in vieil ton (the old Renaissance tuning) and then in the standard baroque tuning on baroque lute, tuning and playing in meantone temperaments can become second nature and greatly enhance the beauty of music played on baroque lutes. This essay begins with a description of the universal issues that impact temperament on lutes, then considers meantone temperaments in vieil ton as an introduction to the more challenging issue of their use in standard baroque tuning. Considerable attention is given to harnessing strategies typically used by plucked-instrument players that can be repurposed to access the few pitches even a well-chosen fret arrangement cannot provide. Practical case studies drawn from the solo archlute and theorbo repertoire accompany these explanations, followed by solutions for several examples drawn from the solo baroque lute music of Silvius Leopold Weiss and Johann Sebastian Bach. Included is an explanation of the factors that can determine which variety of meantone temperament is most practical for the music to be played. The essay concludes with a discussion of how to leverage the use of meantone temperaments in everyday practicing, recordings, and concerts. Throughout the essay, the primary goal is to demonstrate that lutenists can play better in tune with a minimal investment of time and effort.
{"title":"Stay Tuned: Temperament for Solo Lute 1600–1750","authors":"David Dolata","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Most lutenists still tune in equal temperament, despite all the evidence that the best lutenists in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries tuned in some version of meantone temperament. Baroque keyboard players, on the other hand, routinely tune in unequal temperaments, usually one of the many irregular keyboard temperaments available to them. Once the frets are arranged, the lute is extremely flexible in terms of pitch choice, whereas the keyboard is not. The lute's ability to play the same pitch in multiple locations and other idiomatic features allow it to access many key areas with few compromises. Nevertheless, many lutenists still mistakenly believe that regular unequal temperaments such as meantone temperaments are impossible or extremely difficult on the lute, despite all the informational and technological resources available today that facilitate the arrangement of meantone temperaments on lutes. Thus, they do not enjoy the many sonic benefits that unequal temperaments provide.The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that by understanding a few basic principles, first on lutes in vieil ton (the old Renaissance tuning) and then in the standard baroque tuning on baroque lute, tuning and playing in meantone temperaments can become second nature and greatly enhance the beauty of music played on baroque lutes. This essay begins with a description of the universal issues that impact temperament on lutes, then considers meantone temperaments in vieil ton as an introduction to the more challenging issue of their use in standard baroque tuning. Considerable attention is given to harnessing strategies typically used by plucked-instrument players that can be repurposed to access the few pitches even a well-chosen fret arrangement cannot provide. Practical case studies drawn from the solo archlute and theorbo repertoire accompany these explanations, followed by solutions for several examples drawn from the solo baroque lute music of Silvius Leopold Weiss and Johann Sebastian Bach. Included is an explanation of the factors that can determine which variety of meantone temperament is most practical for the music to be played. The essay concludes with a discussion of how to leverage the use of meantone temperaments in everyday practicing, recordings, and concerts. Throughout the essay, the primary goal is to demonstrate that lutenists can play better in tune with a minimal investment of time and effort.","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"224 - 259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49558989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I n an article on representations of the baroque era in film music, Miguel Mera identifies an important difference between concert music and film music: “Good concert music does not necessarily make good film music and vice versa. All of the major film scholars support this view.” Baroque music seems especially ill suited to the needs of film narrative. Baroque composers were keenly concerned not only with expressing but also with drawing out emotions in their listeners—as Sharri K. Hall wrote, “Music could no longer simply present affection but had to move in such ways that the listener was affected emotionally.” Nevertheless, historical beliefs in the connections between musical elements such as temperaments or modes and specific emotional states do not necessarily translate to modern conceptions of musical emotionality. As Roy Prendergast put it, the “rather square” melodies and phrasings of baroque music cannot respond to the pacing and flow of film narratives. And yet, throughout the sound film era, in spite of the dominance of music rooted in a so-called Romantic idiom (although often owing more to twentieththan nineteenth-century practice), baroque music or music inspired by the baroque pops up continually in film scoring, often in the unlikeliest of places. Clearly there is more to baroque music than is commonly assumed by the audiences, critics, and filmmakers who have long denigrated its suitability as film scoring. In Baroque Music in Post-War Cinema, Donald Greig provides a masterful overview and a number of pointed insights into the “hows” and “whys” of baroque music’s relationship to film music. At first glance, one might doubt Greig’s ability, in only eighty pages (including bibliography), to achieve such a feat. Rather than a fulllength monograph, this book is part of the Cambridge Elements series, which, similarly to Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series, packs a concise and focused introduction to a topic into a slender
{"title":"Baroque Music in Post-War Cinema by Donald Greig (review)","authors":"Rebecca Fülöp","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0020","url":null,"abstract":"I n an article on representations of the baroque era in film music, Miguel Mera identifies an important difference between concert music and film music: “Good concert music does not necessarily make good film music and vice versa. All of the major film scholars support this view.” Baroque music seems especially ill suited to the needs of film narrative. Baroque composers were keenly concerned not only with expressing but also with drawing out emotions in their listeners—as Sharri K. Hall wrote, “Music could no longer simply present affection but had to move in such ways that the listener was affected emotionally.” Nevertheless, historical beliefs in the connections between musical elements such as temperaments or modes and specific emotional states do not necessarily translate to modern conceptions of musical emotionality. As Roy Prendergast put it, the “rather square” melodies and phrasings of baroque music cannot respond to the pacing and flow of film narratives. And yet, throughout the sound film era, in spite of the dominance of music rooted in a so-called Romantic idiom (although often owing more to twentieththan nineteenth-century practice), baroque music or music inspired by the baroque pops up continually in film scoring, often in the unlikeliest of places. Clearly there is more to baroque music than is commonly assumed by the audiences, critics, and filmmakers who have long denigrated its suitability as film scoring. In Baroque Music in Post-War Cinema, Donald Greig provides a masterful overview and a number of pointed insights into the “hows” and “whys” of baroque music’s relationship to film music. At first glance, one might doubt Greig’s ability, in only eighty pages (including bibliography), to achieve such a feat. Rather than a fulllength monograph, this book is part of the Cambridge Elements series, which, similarly to Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series, packs a concise and focused introduction to a topic into a slender","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"365 - 371"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42494165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:A harpsichordist and a viola da gamba player who choose to work together will inevitably encounter the related problems of choosing a temperament for the harpsichord and positioning the gamba's frets. A strong solution balances the sometimes-conflicting needs of making the music sound good and finding practical fret positions; while frets can be moved and angled, they do have to be straight lines. The article delves into specific issues for the music of J. S. Bach, providing general background on how temperaments work and focusing on a detailed analysis with three different temperaments. One of the selected temperaments is the author's preferred choice; one is well documented from the time of Bach; and one is a speculation of how Bach actually tuned, based on a diagram by Bach himself. Equal temperament, while a viable solution and arguably the easiest to set up on the gamba, is not included except in passing, since it is felt that it does not serve the sound of the music sufficiently well. The situation of a harpsichordist and a violinist working together in the absence of the constraint of frets is also explored, using the same three temperaments. Each temperament has characteristics that are compared objectively. Strengths and weaknesses are also viewed subjectively, since a solution must also satisfy personal preferences for how the music should sound to performers and how it should affect listeners. Explanatory charts, fret setup diagrams, and numeric tables supplement the descriptions. Summaries of the objective and subjective results of the practical work with harpsichord/gamba and harpsichord/violin combinations conclude the article.
{"title":"The Harpsichord Meets the First Fret (and Other Tuning Practicalities)","authors":"Jonathan Salzedo, R. Whelden, David Wilson","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:A harpsichordist and a viola da gamba player who choose to work together will inevitably encounter the related problems of choosing a temperament for the harpsichord and positioning the gamba's frets. A strong solution balances the sometimes-conflicting needs of making the music sound good and finding practical fret positions; while frets can be moved and angled, they do have to be straight lines. The article delves into specific issues for the music of J. S. Bach, providing general background on how temperaments work and focusing on a detailed analysis with three different temperaments. One of the selected temperaments is the author's preferred choice; one is well documented from the time of Bach; and one is a speculation of how Bach actually tuned, based on a diagram by Bach himself. Equal temperament, while a viable solution and arguably the easiest to set up on the gamba, is not included except in passing, since it is felt that it does not serve the sound of the music sufficiently well. The situation of a harpsichordist and a violinist working together in the absence of the constraint of frets is also explored, using the same three temperaments. Each temperament has characteristics that are compared objectively. Strengths and weaknesses are also viewed subjectively, since a solution must also satisfy personal preferences for how the music should sound to performers and how it should affect listeners. Explanatory charts, fret setup diagrams, and numeric tables supplement the descriptions. Summaries of the objective and subjective results of the practical work with harpsichord/gamba and harpsichord/violin combinations conclude the article.","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"194 - 223"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42099306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In this article I describe my journey into the world of intonation and temperament. Intonation stems from the desire to play or sing "in tune," which, over the course of centuries, gradually shifted its focus from pure intervals to an emphasis primarily on melody. In other words, a shift from a vertical to a horizontal, linear focus. The major stumbling block we encounter in our quest for a universal system in which all harmonies are pure is this little "imperfection" that we discover as soon as we try to tune a keyboard instrument: it is mathematically impossible to make all the possible intervals pure. We have the "comma." Many different temperaments have been developed to arrive at a solution that could satisfy musicians from a particular period, from Pythagoras to our current equal temperament.When playing the J. S. Bach suites for cello solo, my only confrontation with "temperament" is when I must decide how to tune my four fixed notes: my strings. As musicians who are not bound to fixed pitches, we can find solutions for most problems that might arise along the way. When we are playing in an ensemble, we are much closer to a brush with "imperfection." This requires compromises to pure harmony, although the necessity for "temperaments" stays firmly with keyboard instruments.
{"title":"Intonation for Cello in the Music of J. S. Bach","authors":"Jaap ter Linden","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this article I describe my journey into the world of intonation and temperament. Intonation stems from the desire to play or sing \"in tune,\" which, over the course of centuries, gradually shifted its focus from pure intervals to an emphasis primarily on melody. In other words, a shift from a vertical to a horizontal, linear focus. The major stumbling block we encounter in our quest for a universal system in which all harmonies are pure is this little \"imperfection\" that we discover as soon as we try to tune a keyboard instrument: it is mathematically impossible to make all the possible intervals pure. We have the \"comma.\" Many different temperaments have been developed to arrive at a solution that could satisfy musicians from a particular period, from Pythagoras to our current equal temperament.When playing the J. S. Bach suites for cello solo, my only confrontation with \"temperament\" is when I must decide how to tune my four fixed notes: my strings. As musicians who are not bound to fixed pitches, we can find solutions for most problems that might arise along the way. When we are playing in an ensemble, we are much closer to a brush with \"imperfection.\" This requires compromises to pure harmony, although the necessity for \"temperaments\" stays firmly with keyboard instruments.","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"327 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46356735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:J. S. Bach's extant works for viola da gamba (or viol) include the well-known arias in the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion; the three sonatas for viol and harpsichord (BWV 1027–1029); the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6; and obbligato parts in several cantatas. While these works span Bach's career and offer a range of approaches to the instrument, they share one salient feature: all are accompanied by keyboard. Thus, viol players in Bach's day would have had to tune their instruments to the keyboard and adopt its temperament. By the 1720s, this would likely have been a well- or quasi-equal temperament, one of the new circulating temperaments developed by German keyboard players that allowed for the use of remote keys while maintaining a distinct sonic character for each key. The recently discovered Instruction oder eine anweisung auff der Violadigamba (ca. 1730), a manuscript viol treatise that probably originated in Saxony, offers enharmonic equivalence and a relatively broad range of usable keys. These features accord with extant works by Bach and Telemann and offer a glimpse of how circulating keyboard temperaments may have been adapted to the viol.Yet, viol players during the first half of the eighteenth century also had their own native approaches to temperament that had developed in tandem with the repertoires and musical cultures associated with the instrument. In particular, the viol was still recognized as having originated in England, and by the early years of Bach's career generations of viol players, repertoires, and practices had moved freely between England and German-speaking regions. A consideration of tuning and temperament as it relates to the viol in Bach's music therefore invites a broader interrogation of how eighteenth-century viol players thought about temperament, and how their native approaches to the problem of the syntonic comma differed from those of keyboard players. After all, by the eighteenth century most English viol players were gentleman amateurs who favored diatonic music in a limited number of keys and preferred ease of tuning and pure diatonic intervals over the remote keys offered by circulating temperaments.English temperaments for viol promulgated during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are starkly different from the German temperaments that have been embraced as modern by subsequent generations of musicians and scholars. Yet their proponents presented their viol-specific tuning systems among the emergent milieu of the Royal Society of London and other institutions associated with the new empirical science. Mathematician Thomas Salmon and the inventor of the marine chronometer, John Harrison, both published temperaments they developed using the viol that they claimed represented the vanguard of musical science and that differed significantly from the "gleich rein" temperaments propounded by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and other German keyboard players. These divergent approaches
摘要：J。巴赫现存的中提琴作品包括著名的《马太受难曲》和《圣约翰受难曲》中的咏叹调；中提琴和大键琴三首奏鸣曲（BWV1027-1029）；勃兰登堡第六号协奏曲；以及几首康塔塔中的obbligato部分。虽然这些作品跨越了巴赫的职业生涯，并提供了一系列的乐器演奏方法，但它们有一个共同的特点：所有作品都配有键盘。因此，巴赫时代的中提琴演奏者必须将他们的乐器调到键盘上，并适应键盘的气质。到了17世纪20年代，这可能已经是一种很好或近乎平等的气质，这是德国键盘手开发的一种新的流通气质，允许使用遥控键，同时保持每个键的独特声音特征。最近发现的《中提琴说明书》（Instruction oder eine anweisung auff der Violadigamba，约1730年）是一本可能起源于萨克森州的中提琴论文手稿，提供了增强的等效性和相对广泛的可用密钥。这些特征与巴赫和泰勒曼的现存作品相一致，并让我们得以一窥循环的键盘气质是如何适应中提琴的。然而，在18世纪上半叶，中提琴演奏者也有自己的本土风格，这种风格是随着与中提琴相关的曲目和音乐文化而发展起来的。特别是，中提琴仍然被认为起源于英格兰，在巴赫职业生涯的早期，几代中提琴演奏家、曲目和练习在英格兰和德语区之间自由流动。因此，考虑巴赫音乐中与中提琴有关的调音和气质，可以更广泛地探究18世纪中提琴演奏者是如何看待气质的，以及他们在处理合成音逗号问题上的本土方法与键盘演奏者有何不同。毕竟，到了18世纪，大多数英国中提琴演奏者都是绅士般的业余爱好者，他们喜欢用有限的琴键演奏全音阶音乐，更喜欢简单的调音和纯粹的全音阶音程，而不是由循环的气质提供的远程琴键。17世纪末和18世纪颁布的英国中提琴气质与被后世音乐家和学者视为现代人的德国气质截然不同。然而，他们的支持者在伦敦皇家学会和其他与新实证科学相关的机构的新兴环境中提出了他们的中提琴特定调谐系统。数学家托马斯·萨蒙和航海计时器的发明者约翰·哈里森都发表了他们使用中提琴开发的气质，他们声称中提琴代表了音乐科学的先锋，与卡尔·菲利普·伊曼纽尔·巴赫和其他德国键盘手提出的“gleich rein”气质有很大不同。这些不同的方法反映了文化和美学价值观的差异，以及与中提琴和键盘相关的实践社区之间的差异。曾在德国和英国工作的中提琴演奏家卡尔·弗里德里希·阿贝尔（Carl Friedrich Abel）鲜为人知的气质，可能会在德国键盘手先进的现代气质和英国中提琴手发展的对权威和现代性的相互竞争的气质之间提供一种缓和。
{"title":"J. S. Bach, the Viola da Gamba, and Temperament in the Early Eighteenth Century","authors":"Loren Ludwig","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:J. S. Bach's extant works for viola da gamba (or viol) include the well-known arias in the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion; the three sonatas for viol and harpsichord (BWV 1027–1029); the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6; and obbligato parts in several cantatas. While these works span Bach's career and offer a range of approaches to the instrument, they share one salient feature: all are accompanied by keyboard. Thus, viol players in Bach's day would have had to tune their instruments to the keyboard and adopt its temperament. By the 1720s, this would likely have been a well- or quasi-equal temperament, one of the new circulating temperaments developed by German keyboard players that allowed for the use of remote keys while maintaining a distinct sonic character for each key. The recently discovered Instruction oder eine anweisung auff der Violadigamba (ca. 1730), a manuscript viol treatise that probably originated in Saxony, offers enharmonic equivalence and a relatively broad range of usable keys. These features accord with extant works by Bach and Telemann and offer a glimpse of how circulating keyboard temperaments may have been adapted to the viol.Yet, viol players during the first half of the eighteenth century also had their own native approaches to temperament that had developed in tandem with the repertoires and musical cultures associated with the instrument. In particular, the viol was still recognized as having originated in England, and by the early years of Bach's career generations of viol players, repertoires, and practices had moved freely between England and German-speaking regions. A consideration of tuning and temperament as it relates to the viol in Bach's music therefore invites a broader interrogation of how eighteenth-century viol players thought about temperament, and how their native approaches to the problem of the syntonic comma differed from those of keyboard players. After all, by the eighteenth century most English viol players were gentleman amateurs who favored diatonic music in a limited number of keys and preferred ease of tuning and pure diatonic intervals over the remote keys offered by circulating temperaments.English temperaments for viol promulgated during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are starkly different from the German temperaments that have been embraced as modern by subsequent generations of musicians and scholars. Yet their proponents presented their viol-specific tuning systems among the emergent milieu of the Royal Society of London and other institutions associated with the new empirical science. Mathematician Thomas Salmon and the inventor of the marine chronometer, John Harrison, both published temperaments they developed using the viol that they claimed represented the vanguard of musical science and that differed significantly from the \"gleich rein\" temperaments propounded by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and other German keyboard players. These divergent approaches","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"260 - 300"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47216919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Notes have different names (such as D♭ vs C#) because they belong to different diatonic scales. From the sixteenth century forward, there were equally spaced systems of intonation holding a general principle where sharps are pitched lower than nearby flats. The naming distinctions matter because these notes were at least a comma apart from one another, differently pitched to fit into the scales. To play the correct notes within ensembles, and to play keyboard solos, keyboards with only twelve key levers presented a practical problem. It was necessary to compromise (tastefully adjust) some of their sharp or flat pitches toward one another to play acceptable approximations.Bach's keyboard parts and solos show that he required more than twelve differently named notes per composition throughout his career. For example, he frequently used both G# and A♭ within the same piece. He did this with such impunity and flexibility that he obviously had practical ways to make these notes sound acceptable in their different scale functions. The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I (1722) was not exceptional in its requirements of such enharmonic overlapping. A temperament to play Bach's keyboard music therefore must be able to play the sharps D#, A#, E#, and B#, along with the flats A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭, and F♭. These notes are primary evidence for compromised keyboard tuning. Temperaments are demonstrably wrong where they do not provide notes such as D♭ and E# that are far from the C-major scale.This article presents a close look at this evidence of the required notes in Bach's music, with more than 400 pieces beyond the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. Measured within eighteenth-century expectations of expert practice, enharmonically flexible temperaments can have no notes out of tune by as far as a comma, and no beatless major thirds. This rules out quarter-comma temperaments. With these technical constraints on keyboard temperaments to play this repertoire, this article proposes that Bach required a sixth-comma tempérament ordinaire to play his sharps and flats. That is the same practical tuning procedure and set of principles presented by this author in 2005. The background and enharmonic measurements from 2005 are explained more thoroughly in this article.Documents from Pier Francesco Tosi, Johann Joachim Quantz, Georg Andreas Sorge, Friedrich Marpurg, et al. provide context in recognizing the scale requirements, regular systems of intonation, avoidance of Pythagorean thirds, and matters of taste. An equal-spacing illustration shows how to transpose music and observe the regularity or irregularities of temperaments. The example of Johann Philipp Kirnberger's published temperament shows why Kirnberger was unreliable as a witness for Bach, because the behavior of melodic motion is crucial in assessing a temperament's suitability.
摘要:由于音符属于不同的全音阶，因此它们有不同的名称(如D & c#)。从16世纪开始，有了等间隔的音准系统，保持了一个普遍的原则，即升音高比附近的降音高低。命名的区别很重要，因为这些音符彼此之间至少有一个逗号，音调不同以适应音阶。为了在合奏中演奏正确的音符，以及演奏键盘独奏，只有12个键杠杆的键盘出现了一个实际问题。有必要妥协(有品位地调整)他们的一些尖锐或平坦的音调，以演奏可接受的近似。巴赫的键盘部分和独奏表明，在他的职业生涯中，每首作品都需要超过12个不同命名的音符。例如，他经常在同一首曲子中同时使用g#和A。他这样做是如此的不受惩罚和灵活，他显然有实际的方法使这些音符在不同的音阶功能中听起来可以接受。《良律钢琴曲集》第一卷(1722年)在要求这种不和谐的重叠方面并不例外。因此，弹奏巴赫键盘音乐的音律必须能弹奏升调D#、A#、E#和B#，以及降调A、D、G、C和F。这些音符是键盘调弦受损的主要证据。如果不提供像D和E#这样远离c大调音阶的音符，那么气质显然是错误的。这篇文章对巴赫音乐中必要音符的证据进行了仔细的研究，除了《好调的键盘曲集》第一册之外，还有400多首曲子。按照18世纪专家练习的期望来衡量，和谐灵活的气质可以没有音符走调，甚至连一个逗号都没有，也没有无拍的三度大调。这排除了四分之一逗号的气质。由于键盘上的这些技术限制，这篇文章提出巴赫需要一个六逗号的普通调律来演奏他的升调和降调。这与作者在2005年提出的实际调优过程和一组原则相同。本文对2005年以来的背景和谐波测量进行了更深入的解释。来自Pier Francesco Tosi, Johann Joachim Quantz, Georg Andreas Sorge, Friedrich Marpurg等人的文献提供了识别音阶要求，常规语调系统，避免毕达哥拉斯三度法和品味问题的背景。一个等间距的插图展示了如何变换音乐和观察规律或不规则的气质。约翰·菲利普·柯恩伯格(Johann Philipp Kirnberger)发表的《气质》的例子说明了为什么柯恩伯格作为巴赫的证人是不可靠的，因为旋律运动的行为在评估气质的适宜性方面是至关重要的。
{"title":"The Notes Tell Us How to Tune","authors":"B. Lehman","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Notes have different names (such as D♭ vs C#) because they belong to different diatonic scales. From the sixteenth century forward, there were equally spaced systems of intonation holding a general principle where sharps are pitched lower than nearby flats. The naming distinctions matter because these notes were at least a comma apart from one another, differently pitched to fit into the scales. To play the correct notes within ensembles, and to play keyboard solos, keyboards with only twelve key levers presented a practical problem. It was necessary to compromise (tastefully adjust) some of their sharp or flat pitches toward one another to play acceptable approximations.Bach's keyboard parts and solos show that he required more than twelve differently named notes per composition throughout his career. For example, he frequently used both G# and A♭ within the same piece. He did this with such impunity and flexibility that he obviously had practical ways to make these notes sound acceptable in their different scale functions. The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I (1722) was not exceptional in its requirements of such enharmonic overlapping. A temperament to play Bach's keyboard music therefore must be able to play the sharps D#, A#, E#, and B#, along with the flats A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭, and F♭. These notes are primary evidence for compromised keyboard tuning. Temperaments are demonstrably wrong where they do not provide notes such as D♭ and E# that are far from the C-major scale.This article presents a close look at this evidence of the required notes in Bach's music, with more than 400 pieces beyond the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. Measured within eighteenth-century expectations of expert practice, enharmonically flexible temperaments can have no notes out of tune by as far as a comma, and no beatless major thirds. This rules out quarter-comma temperaments. With these technical constraints on keyboard temperaments to play this repertoire, this article proposes that Bach required a sixth-comma tempérament ordinaire to play his sharps and flats. That is the same practical tuning procedure and set of principles presented by this author in 2005. The background and enharmonic measurements from 2005 are explained more thoroughly in this article.Documents from Pier Francesco Tosi, Johann Joachim Quantz, Georg Andreas Sorge, Friedrich Marpurg, et al. provide context in recognizing the scale requirements, regular systems of intonation, avoidance of Pythagorean thirds, and matters of taste. An equal-spacing illustration shows how to transpose music and observe the regularity or irregularities of temperaments. The example of Johann Philipp Kirnberger's published temperament shows why Kirnberger was unreliable as a witness for Bach, because the behavior of melodic motion is crucial in assessing a temperament's suitability.","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"156 - 193"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41924272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Over the centuries, much ink has been spilled describing attempts to deal, in some musically satisfactory fashion, with the unavoidable fact that twelve stacked pure perfect fifths do not yield the same result as seven stacked octaves. In today's modern instruments practice, though the infelicitous harmonies arising from equal temperament are often disguised by continuous vibrato, players and singers occasionally color their melodic lines by inflecting pitches subtly to make them more "expressive," frequently to the greater detriment of the harmony.Temperament is usually approached from the viewpoints of theorists and/or keyboard players. J. S. Bach was born at a time when varieties of mean-tone temperament were still prevalent. But by the middle of the eighteenth century, not only had numerous well-temperaments become common, but major writers such as Leopold Mozart could pronounce, without further elaboration, that all the major and minor scales had identical intervallic structures. In this article, I take as a point of departure a commonly articulated late sixteenth-century classification system for instruments—according to their intonational flexibility—and apply it to the varying attitudes players of those instruments might have held from Bach's time to the present, including the use of melodic shading that can make for more in-tune, rather than more compromised, chords.
{"title":"Temperament, or De vita cum imperfectis","authors":"K. Slowik","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Over the centuries, much ink has been spilled describing attempts to deal, in some musically satisfactory fashion, with the unavoidable fact that twelve stacked pure perfect fifths do not yield the same result as seven stacked octaves. In today's modern instruments practice, though the infelicitous harmonies arising from equal temperament are often disguised by continuous vibrato, players and singers occasionally color their melodic lines by inflecting pitches subtly to make them more \"expressive,\" frequently to the greater detriment of the harmony.Temperament is usually approached from the viewpoints of theorists and/or keyboard players. J. S. Bach was born at a time when varieties of mean-tone temperament were still prevalent. But by the middle of the eighteenth century, not only had numerous well-temperaments become common, but major writers such as Leopold Mozart could pronounce, without further elaboration, that all the major and minor scales had identical intervallic structures. In this article, I take as a point of departure a commonly articulated late sixteenth-century classification system for instruments—according to their intonational flexibility—and apply it to the varying attitudes players of those instruments might have held from Bach's time to the present, including the use of melodic shading that can make for more in-tune, rather than more compromised, chords.","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"336 - 354"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66403205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M ichael Maul’s credentials are impeccable. He is a key member of the research team at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig and for several years has served as the artistic director of the “Bach-Fest,” the annual Leipzig Bach Festival. His Bach—Eine Bildbiografie/Pictorial Biography is different in a number of ways from the range of previous accounts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s life written by such distinguished authors as Philipp Spitta, Albert Schweitzer, Christoph Wolff, and others. Perhaps most importantly, it is a biography based on iconographical documents, where every right-hand page presents an image, with detailed description given on the left-hand page. In between four introductory and two closing pages (also accompanied by images), the book follows a clearly outlined chronology of the Cantor’s life in six chapters, divided into 141 episodes. More than likely, this palindromic number is a thinly veiled, witty reference to the numerical signature of Bach; when converted into numbers, the four letters B-A-C-H equal 2 þ 1 þ 3 þ 8 = 14. At the top of every left-hand page, the pertinent year is highlighted, giving precise guidance to the reader. The chapters mark the main stations in the composer’s life; thus, for example, chapter 6 offers an account of the Leipzig years. The pages by no means mark a rigid year-by-year account. A few years—even from the composer’s later decades—remain unmentioned (for example, 1744 and 1745). Meanwhile, some years, which the author deemed more eventful, are discussed in considerably more detail; for example, the events of 1725 are elaborated over six pictures and therefore six double pages. Maul’s distinctive view focuses on the interrelations of people and events in the baroque master’s life, eminently supported by numerous citations from contemporary sources and a wonderful compilation of images. This may help explain why only the most well-known sacred cantatas and about a dozen of the hundreds of
{"title":"Bach—Eine Bildbiografie/Pictorial Biography by Michael Maul (review)","authors":"Z. Szabó","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0019","url":null,"abstract":"M ichael Maul’s credentials are impeccable. He is a key member of the research team at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig and for several years has served as the artistic director of the “Bach-Fest,” the annual Leipzig Bach Festival. His Bach—Eine Bildbiografie/Pictorial Biography is different in a number of ways from the range of previous accounts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s life written by such distinguished authors as Philipp Spitta, Albert Schweitzer, Christoph Wolff, and others. Perhaps most importantly, it is a biography based on iconographical documents, where every right-hand page presents an image, with detailed description given on the left-hand page. In between four introductory and two closing pages (also accompanied by images), the book follows a clearly outlined chronology of the Cantor’s life in six chapters, divided into 141 episodes. More than likely, this palindromic number is a thinly veiled, witty reference to the numerical signature of Bach; when converted into numbers, the four letters B-A-C-H equal 2 þ 1 þ 3 þ 8 = 14. At the top of every left-hand page, the pertinent year is highlighted, giving precise guidance to the reader. The chapters mark the main stations in the composer’s life; thus, for example, chapter 6 offers an account of the Leipzig years. The pages by no means mark a rigid year-by-year account. A few years—even from the composer’s later decades—remain unmentioned (for example, 1744 and 1745). Meanwhile, some years, which the author deemed more eventful, are discussed in considerably more detail; for example, the events of 1725 are elaborated over six pictures and therefore six double pages. Maul’s distinctive view focuses on the interrelations of people and events in the baroque master’s life, eminently supported by numerous citations from contemporary sources and a wonderful compilation of images. This may help explain why only the most well-known sacred cantatas and about a dozen of the hundreds of","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"361 - 364"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49647844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Only recently have Bach's use of multiple tonalities, different pitch levels, and unequal temperament been given both serious consideration and practical application in the performance of his sacred vocal works. By investigating the surviving performance material of works from his first year in Leipzig, this article explores the pragmatic decisions in the interconnected nexus of tonality, pitch, and tuning that impact our understanding of Bach's tonal language. The fact that Bach conceived music for performance in more than one key has implications for both the idiomatic treatment of instruments and the methods by which he aligned affects with specific keys. The continued use of tief-Cammerton (or A−2) across Bach's first cantata cycle of 1723–1724 is considered. Following procedures developed by Bruce Haynes, each case is examined. This results in a revised list of works that we can say conclusively were performed by Bach at this lower pitch. A pivotal work in this regard is the Magnificat in its two versions in E-flat and D major. The article also addresses the problems that Bach encountered when adapting material composed for performance at different pitches from the ones in place in Leipzig. As much as he sought practical solutions, the evidence suggests that in many cases, he was obliged to tolerate reusing music from Weimar and Cöthen in less-than-ideal circumstances where both instrumental and vocal parts were compromised by a change in pitch or tonality. The quest to find a tuning system suited to the demands of this repertoire has led to sixth-comma meantone temperament. The article concludes with a discussion of the application of this tuning orientation to multi-tonal performance and offers some considerations on how the intonation of non-fixed-pitch instruments can be treated in this context.
{"title":"Reconsidering Tonal Procedures in J. S. Bach's First Year in Leipzig: Some Implications from the Wind-Player's Perspective","authors":"Geoffrey Burgess","doi":"10.1353/bach.2022.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bach.2022.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Only recently have Bach's use of multiple tonalities, different pitch levels, and unequal temperament been given both serious consideration and practical application in the performance of his sacred vocal works. By investigating the surviving performance material of works from his first year in Leipzig, this article explores the pragmatic decisions in the interconnected nexus of tonality, pitch, and tuning that impact our understanding of Bach's tonal language. The fact that Bach conceived music for performance in more than one key has implications for both the idiomatic treatment of instruments and the methods by which he aligned affects with specific keys. The continued use of tief-Cammerton (or A−2) across Bach's first cantata cycle of 1723–1724 is considered. Following procedures developed by Bruce Haynes, each case is examined. This results in a revised list of works that we can say conclusively were performed by Bach at this lower pitch. A pivotal work in this regard is the Magnificat in its two versions in E-flat and D major. The article also addresses the problems that Bach encountered when adapting material composed for performance at different pitches from the ones in place in Leipzig. As much as he sought practical solutions, the evidence suggests that in many cases, he was obliged to tolerate reusing music from Weimar and Cöthen in less-than-ideal circumstances where both instrumental and vocal parts were compromised by a change in pitch or tonality. The quest to find a tuning system suited to the demands of this repertoire has led to sixth-comma meantone temperament. The article concludes with a discussion of the application of this tuning orientation to multi-tonal performance and offers some considerations on how the intonation of non-fixed-pitch instruments can be treated in this context.","PeriodicalId":42367,"journal":{"name":"BACH","volume":"53 1","pages":"301 - 326"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42800520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：