Well Tempered Clavier- Anew Aproach 1

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J. S. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier": A New Approach . 1Author(s): Peter WilliamsSource: Early Music, Vol. 11, No. 1, Tenth Anniversary Issue (Jan., 1983), pp. 46-52Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3137505Accessed: 05/10/2009 18:12

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Peter Williams

J S B a c h s Well tempered l a v i e r

A new approach 1

Hans von Buelow's phrase about the '48'-that it wasthe Old Testament of music-might well not have

surprised its composer. For, modesty apart, Bach musthave been well aware that the '48' surveyed and

presented the laws and regulations of music asunderstood by him and as handed down by generationsof thinking composers. In fact, von Buelow might wellhave defined his view of the '48' better by calling it thePentateuch of music, for without doubt it was meant toserve as an exposition of musical laws: to show howthose laws had been practised, how they could be

practised and how they strengthened-rather thanrestricted-the musical spirit, particularly in a periodbefore the notions of lone genius, child prodigies,mysterious inspiration etc coloured the way composerssaw their craft. It is possible to see the '48' not only as a

repertory of musical devices but as a summary of thelaw, a laying down of what is right. The 48 (or rather the

96) case studies show that law in operation and giveenough precedents to satisfy any adventurous musician.And this law is no textbook abstraction but a kind oftruth given to the talented by the Creator of all things,

who expected the musician to use his talent to its fullpotential. Reasoning in this way, one reaches a

position from which it is easy to comprehend how a

composer in the ages of belief would see himself as

being at his most devoted and religious precisely whenhe was writing his most abstract and complicatedmusic. 'Jesu juva' (Jesus, help ) at the head of J. S.Bach's fair copy of the six organ Sonatas (D-Bds,Mus.ms.Bach P 271) was no idle formula. What is

more, orthodox classical Lutheranism would not havecared much for the idea that the duty of the talentedfew

layin

simplifyingtruth for

quick comprehensionby the many, either in music or in theology. To thinkthat duty lay in, for example, composing for 'thecommon man' was more Pietistic than Lutheran.

All this is rather high-falutin and pious; but themore one works with the '48' the more it appears to be a

high-falutin and pious achievement. With this in

mind, I do not think that one need pay too muchattention to the composer's own title for it, written onthe cover-page of book I (Bds, Mus.ms.Bach P 415):

Das Wohltemperirte lavier. der Praeludia, und Fugen durchalle Tone nd Semitonia, o wohl tertiam majorem der UtReMianlangend, als auch tertiam minorem der ReMi Fa betreffend.Zum Nutzen und Gebrauch der Lehr-begierigenMusicalischenJugend, als auch derer n diesem studio schonhabil seyendenbesonderem ZeitVertreib auffgesetzet und verfertiget vonJohann Sebastian Bach. p.t: HochFiirstlich Anhalt-Cothen-ischen Capel-Meistern nd Directore erer Cammer Musiquen.Anno 1722The Well-tempered Clavier, or preludes and fugues throughall the tones and semitones both as involves the major 3rdand as concerns the minor 3rd. For the needs and use of the

musical young desirous of learning, as well as for thepastime of those already practised in this study, drawn upand composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Kapellmeister ohis Serene Highness the Prince of Anhalt-Cothen etc anddirector of his chamber music.

Now that is a pretty objective title, without piousimplications, you might think. But remember that forthe strict Lutheran, learning itself was a divine gift,and that such a phrase as 'for the needs and use of themusical young desirous of learning' says more than it

appears to say. To be desirous of learning is virtually to

be in a state of grace, showing that youare

awareof the

gifts you were given and of your duty in sharpening,refining and broadening those gifts, making yourselfready to present perfection-or as near to perfectionas your gifts allow-to your Creator. It is the same withthat phrase used by Bach on his later title-pages: the

Goldberg Variations, for example, were composed'forthe recreation of the souls of music lovers', accordingto the engraved title-page. Now 'recreation of the soul'

('Seelenerg6tzung') was no mere flourish of words, andit says a lot about our own period that we now sayrecreation (rekri'eif n) and not re-creation (ri:kri:'eifan)for activities outside work. We all acknowledge J. S.Bach to have been religious and pious, but it isdifficult for us to sense exactly what that meant in

practice and to feel the exact shade of meaning such aman would have attached to a verbal formula of thiskind. What exactly did he mean, for instance, when hecalled the set of Inventions (Bds, Mus.ms.Bach P 610)'upright instruction'?

One can after all only say certain things on a title-

46 EARLY MUSIC JANUARY 1983



page. What the Orgel-Buchlein says is:

Orgel-Biichlein Worinne einem anfahenden OrganistenAnleitung egeben wird, auff allerhand Arth einen Choraldurchzuffihren, anbey auch sich im Pedal tudio zu habilitiren... (Bds, Mus.ms.Bach P 283)

Organ Album, n which instruction s given to an organistnew o the art, n how o work ut a chorale n manydifferentways, also in how to perfect himself n playing pedals ..

No one would expect it to say 'Organ Album in whichinstruction is given in writing succinct, beautifulpreludes that lesser mortals will never equal'; even lesswould it be expected to say 'Organ Album written as anoffering to God'. Neither claim would be made by aLutheran, but J. S. Bach must have been aware thatboth of them would have been true. It is relevant toan understanding of the '48' that the title-page of theOrgel-Biuchlein was written some time after most of the

pieces in it were composed, and belongs to much thesame period as book 1 of the '48', when instructing themusical young seems to have been an aim behind agood deal of the music J. S. Bach was writing. Not onlywas Wilhelm Friedemann musical and young, butmany of the pieces of that period-the sets ofInventions, book 1 of the '48', the new title for theOrgel-Buichlein, ven the Brandenburg Concertos andsets of chamber sonatas-have the character ofspecially made repertory-collections. That s to say, intheir grouping of six or some such number of pieces

they each seem to present a survey of what can bedone in a particular field. They each present arepertory of pieces similar in medium or overallstrategy but as varied as that medium will allow. Andthis variety s carefully and minutely planned. Obviouslythere is variety in all collections of good music:anybody studying Handel's concerti grossi, Schumann'ssongs or Berio's Sequenze will be almost bewildered bytheir variety, by such imaginative caprice in theirdetail that very often he may have no idea what thenext movement or section will be (or indeed whether

there will even be one). But the variety shown by J. S.Bach in, say, the harpsichord Partitas s not capriciousin the same way. On the contrary, the variety isreasoned and very systematic, so that the player iscarefully provided with, for example, six quite differentbut equally characteristic allemandes. Each one isundeniably an allemande. But the character and hencethe style of playing required in each are astonishinglydifferent. I doubt that a common tempo could befound even for two of them. In fact, to put this the

other way round, one could made a crucial point forthe player and suggest that it is part of the nature ofsuch carefully planned collections that one does notfind a common tempo for any two allemandes. Certainlyanybody playing or recording the Partitas who has notthought out this question properly s not being faithfulto the composer.

It is easy to ask questions about the music of J. S.Bach that the composer himself could not haveanswered, and one of these is, 'What were the twobooks of the '48' composed for?'. As books of instructionfor composers, they must have been of limited value,for they were not published, over 20 years separatesthe completion of the two volumes (insofar as thesecond was actually 'finished' in the same way as thefirst), and their scope, their survey of styles is far toosubtle to be grasped by even the most apt and giftedpupil (including Wilhelm Friedemann). As books of

instruction or performers hey have even more obviousdisadvantages: many of the pieces are exceptionallydifficult to play, and difficult in a way not clear to usof the prestigious post-Czerny generations, namely intheir free and pragmatic use of the fingers. The fingersare the means of conveying counterpoint or homo-phony constructed from certain motifs or figurae; ofthis, more in part 2. For the moment, one need noteonly that since the pieces are not graded he '48' wouldhardly have conformed even to the type of disorganizedkeyboard tutor usual in the 18th century,' before

pianists saw that dexterity could be won by practisingmultiple octave scales and arpeggios something neverdone by players of any generation before Mozart). Ifthe '48' was written as a set of instruction pieces for theyoung musician learning about temperament (this isthe old chestnut about the well-tempered clavier) hensome crucial things are not made clear to him: chiefly,what exactly does 'well-tempered' mean (recentlyinterpreted evidence suggests that it meant 'equaltemperament' after all), how is he to tune by it, andwhat precisely do the pieces demonstrate about the 24

keys other than how to get your fingers around them?Some of these 'secrets' could no doubt have beenimparted by word of mouth amongst the Bach circle.

'Why 18th-century tutors were 'disorganized' in contrast to laterways of arranging uch books is itself a difficult question to answer.As with other kinds of instruction or teaching books-e.g. on craftssuch as flute making or organ-pipe making-it was the age of theindustrial revolution that saw order and systematically-arrangeddetail as indispensable. Or rather, our notion of the 'correct' way toarrange a book of instruction is itself a historical phenomenon andbelongs to a certain period only.

EARLY MUSIC JANUARY 1983 47



But why in any case should a player need to play in all24 keys? Nowhere else was he likely to find albums

requiring him to play in G sharp minor and treating itas a key of equal status with, say, G minor. Certainly afew German organ tutors of the early 18th centurysometimes gave the young organist chorales to play insuch keys, but there cannot have been many church

organsable to

playthem, i.e. on which

theywould have

been tolerable. And we should not forget that Bach'sextant organ music itself uses only some of the 24keys: even when a difficult key is used-as in the Fminor Prelude and Fugue Bwv534-it is very unlikelyto have been the composer's original key for the piece.Nor as far as the committed temperament devotee isconcerned-and there have been people of everygeneration between Dufay and Stockhausen who haverelished this cul-de-sac of a subject-are 24 keysparticularly useful, for what he would like are 38 oreven 104 keys per octave, in comparison to whichBach's 24 must seem a poor compromise. What is more,anybody who sees in the '48' examples of how an

intelligent composer uses keys that can never soundreally well unless individually tuned should rememberthat some of the pieces in the '48' were most probablycomposed in other keys and transposed for thesealbums. So it is no use looking at the F sharp majorpieces to see how Bach caters for the over-sharp thirdunless it can be demonstrated from the sources eitherthat this was the key in which he originally composedthe piece or that if he did transpose it to this key he hadto alter the original in significant ways. It is circularlogic to think that he transposed a piece into a remotekey because it would happen to suit (by its texture,spacing etc) that remote key.

Curiously enough, it is the sources themselves thathelp to suggest why Bach composed 48 preludes and

fugues, or at least collected ('aufgesetzet'-cf. the

title-page) them together for the two books. This is an

important distinction to make, for it points out whatmust have been one of the two chief reasons for the'48', namely J. S. Bach's recurrent urge to gather piecesinto collections. A passion for making collections isknown to most of us in one way or another, and itcould even be that far from assembling music forpublication, Bach made his various collections ofpieces-the '48', the Orgel-Buichlein, he 17 (18? 15?)Chorales, the Art ofFugue, the B minor Mass-preciselybecause he had no intention of publishing them andwas therefore free of the various pressures that one canimagine the Handels, Telemanns and Kauffmanns tohave been under when they published their collections


during the same period. His copyists-pupils, relatives,friends, admirers, professionals-often copied thesecollections of J. S. Bach's, but only rarely did they copythem complete or in their original order. The '48' isrelatively well preserved in the sources from this pointof view, since of course its order and sequence-risingkeys, in major and minor pairs- are clear to everybodyand are

unlikelyto have been

changed accidentally ordeliberately without cause. The copies of and referencesto the '48' in the decades immediately after thecomposer's death use it as a mine in which anyone isfree to dig if he wishes to demonstrate some contra-puntal or compositional device. In other words, by atleast the 1770s Bach's reputation as the Great Providerof Contrapuntal Truths was established, and the '48'became a happy hunting-ground for examples offugue, stretto, canon, invertible counterpoint and therest. The writers who used it for this purpose wereoften pupils of J. S. Bach's,

directlyor

indirectly,and

the chances are that they were carrying on a traditionof seeing the '48' in this way.

The problem for later generations has been that ifJ. S. Bach is the Great Provider of Contrapuntal Truths-the idea of a musical Moses or Augustine again-thenthese pieces must be played reverently; by all meanslyrically, but rather solemnly, because they are 'goodfor you', because they are an Old Testament in thewaters of which the player is purified before passing tothe New Testament of Beethoven. Yet if one supposesbook 1 of the '48' to be not so much a book of lawdemonstrating contrapuntal regulations and byelawsfor students, but rather an album representing asurprisingly widely read composer's idea of how musicbehaves-of what can be done by a few notes-thenone's approach would be not only truer to the composerbut also more likely to lead to proper performance. By'proper' I mean something objective, namely'accordingto the expectations of the composer as to instrument,tempo, phrasing, articulation and all that is involved inidiomatic performance'. Not for a single one of thesecan we fix a 100% rigid rule, of course, but, as ever with

the great composers, we can go further along the pathof verifiable evidence, fact and plausible conjecturethan is generally thought. The point at which personalopinion has to be brought in is very far along that path.It is a peculiar result of the pseudo-democracy we livein that we claim every man to have the right to opinion:another historic phenomenon that has belonged to noother culture in no other age.

Let us take the example of the correct instrument forthe '48'. Now it is known that'Clavier' is an ambiguous



1 Unfretted German clavichord by J. A. Hass (Hamburg, 1763) (Edinburgh, Russell Collection of Harpsichords and Clavichords)

term throughout the 18th century and that for somereason-not unconnected with that country's poorrecord in making harpsichords-the Germans always

were ambiguous about keyboard terminology. Acentury before Bach they used the very word 'Instru-ment' to mean a harpsichord as distinct from an organor (in many cases, such as careful inventories) a spinet.At the other end of the period, Mozart's generationused 'Flugel' by no means necessarily to denote thepiano. Nevertheless, 'Clavier' on the title-page of the'48' in no circumstances means church organ, and if itcould be taken to sanction clavichord or chamberorgan it must be understood that these instrumentswere merely convenient work tools, and that by 1720full-dress keyboard music (if I may call it so) wasalways played on a church organ or on a full-sizeharpsichord. Behind that generalization can be mar-shalled innumerable sources of information, fromprinted title-pages to court chamberlains' accounts forinstrument removal; so there seems to be little roomfor quibbling on the matter.

But what there is room for is a questioning of theassumption that the '48' is indeed meant to have a'correct' instrument. It is true that most of the piecescan be played by two hands on a keyboard, and Tovey'sobservation on the Art of Fugue-that whatever the

composer is doing in such-and-such a movement, itremains playable by eight fingers and two thumbs-can equally apply to the '48'. But quite apart from the

phenomenal dexterity needed for some movements(e.g. the E flat major Prelude of book 1, its threesections played at the same tempo), at least one piececannot be played as known, i.e. as notated in theautograph: the A minor Fugue of book 1. Were thispiece to be found only in miscellaneous manuscripts itwould no doubt have been placed in the later complete

editions (Peters, BG etc) amongst the organ works, likesome others that have found their way there on verydubious 'internal evidence' (ex. 1). As it is, one cannot

doubt its authenticity, its lay-out or its position in the'48'; but one can certainly doubt its playability by twohands. Its trustworthiness in other respects leads to avery important observation: that there are other thingsto do with music than play it or listen to it-thatJ. S. Bach thought and conceived musical ideas aswell as playing and perceiving musical notes. The Aminor Fugue is a perfect genre fugue, a model of itsold-fashioned, local Thuringian-Saxon type; it doesthings none of the other 47 fugues does and without itthere would be a gap in the composer's survey of fuguetypes. Its playability is another matter and, one mightventure the guess, of secondary concern to thecomposer. Any ideas one might have about how tobring it off in performance-by adapting the closeimaginatively, by bringing in a second player, by usinga pedal harpsichord-are, from this point of view,irrelevant, however well various writers have been ableto show that one or other of these 'solutions' is theright one. (Perhaps this is the proper approach also tothe temperament question: the composer was con-cerned not with the empirical problem but with the

conceptual notion of using all the keys.)At the same time (and that is no empty phrase) the

'48' is realizable on keyboard instruments, even if it isnot keyboard music in the sense that C. P. E. Bach'sclavichord sonatas, Beethoven's piano sonatas andMendelssohn's organ sonatas are keyboard music.Moreover, everyone is aware that some of the '48' govery nicely on instruments other than the harpsichord,namely clavichord, chamber organ and, for some ofbook 2, early piano. One could go further and suggestthat book 2 in particular surveys all musical styles




Ex.l(a) Close of A minor Prelude Bwv569 for organ?)

I i' A

#.~~~~~~~~~~~

(b) Opening of A minor Fantasia and Fugue Bwv561 for organ?authentic point d'orgue?)

/ -:ftm

etcjsP~I~si??OI

\ 1?

(c) Close of A minor Fugue Bwv865.i '48', book 1)

(t-O- 2-, ; .-*3

9- '- 1 -M;

available to the intelligent composer in 1744, and doesso in such a way that a fortepiano is actually neededjust to show how very galant some of those newmusical styles were. For example, the little melody inthe B major Prelude (ex.2) gains ingalanterie when it isplayed on a Silbermann piano; one could, therefore,


l^)^.$ Yter Y,Ij~ ~ ~ ~ . | i"$

Erratum: or a sharp read b

view it as piano music. Unfortunately or the argumenton behalf of pianos, the fugue following it in theautograph copy of book 2-nobody will ever knowwhether this prelude and this fugue were always sopaired by their composer-is nothing like so patentlygalant; while it is pretty enough on the fortepiano, itsalla breve, omewhat antico counterpoint ex.3)certainlydoes not demand it. The prelude itself, though full ofgalant touches-it is clear where C. P. E. Bach was firstintroduced to le style galant-has when played on theharpsichord a definite robustness that encourages oneto play it faster and more freely than on the fortepiano,difficult though it would be to support such a feelingfrom documents.'

Similar points could be made about the chamberorgan or the E major Prelude and Fugue of book 2. Theorgan seems suitable for the held notes of the preludeand of course for the grand antico counterpoint of thefugue, J. S. Bach's strictest and most carefully reasonedfugue. But other long-held notes in the '48' do notdemand the organ, and a change of instrumentbetween prelude and fugue would be eccentric in anyset performance a la mode moderne. f its very strictness'That the three-part Ricercar rom the Musical Offering s fortepianomusic is indeed likely, judging by its musical character (figurationand crescendo-diminuendo expressiveness, especially in theepisodes) and context (a salute of some kind to the ambience andmusical interests of Frederick's ourt in Potsdam). But those alertedto simpler significances will also have seen that the very tessitura ofthe opening subject (to a" flat, very unusual in any fugue, especiallyone in only three parts) suggests the pearly treble tone of the newpianos to have been something that composers noticed. This is alsothe tessitura of the melody in ex.2.

Ex.2 B major Prelude Bwv892.i '48', book 2)



Ex.3 B major Fugue Bwv892.ii '48', book 2)

ma##ke t fia r C ormakes the fugue seem suitable for the organ, oneshould note first that the texture of the piece isactually quite different from genuine organ music (forexample, the strict counterpoints in the AllabreveBWV589 r the Kyrie preludes BWV669-7 ),and secondthat it must have been the purpose of the '48' topresent pieces incorporating a vast repertory of style inone and the same medium. Nobody would dream ofpicking up a gamba for the sarabandes of the CelloSuites simply because it happens to be suitable forthose movements.

Players fond of using several different instrumentsfor the '48' should also remember hat the instrumentsfamiliar o us may produce an effect far removed fromthose produced by the instruments the composerowned. The C major Prelude of book 1 must be one ofthe most celebrated of all clavichord pieces, and it isstill often heard on late clavichords of the galantperiod (illus. 1) or 20th-century copies of them. But thelittle house-instruments of 1720 were far less sophis-ticated, even if some tastes prefer them to the later.Besides, if this prelude is a clavichord piece, whatabout the fugue? Does not playing the fugue on aclavichord give the final bars an effect-ethereal orcomical, depending on the clavichord-that obtrudeson the notes as we actually have them? Here we are inthe regions of opinion, but it could certainly be claimedthat if we like the clavichord for certain preludes or

even fugues of the '48', the chances are that that isbecause the instrument adds an element of sound-colour or refinement neither justified by the sourcesnor, usually, resembling that of the normal house-clavichord of the period and area in which the '48' wascompiled. Sorting out fact from opinion in such anassertion as that is difficult; but well-restored antiqueharpsichords surely teach us that before the improvedpianos of the 1820s, the harpsichord was quite themost versatile keyboard instrument ever made.

Yet if we agreed only that a harpsichord could playall of the '48', we would not have agreed on much, forone of the keyboard player's biggest problems is, whatwas the Bach harpsichord of c1720 like?

Nobody yet knows enough about the '48' to give acomplete chronology of either book, and even thematter of

whyin some sources certain pieces occur in

different keys and in different versions is not ascertain as was once thought. Nevertheless, it couldhardly be foolish to assume that the last two preludesof book 2 to be composed were written some twodecades after the earliest two preludes of book 1. Sincewe wish to know the correct harpsichord for the '48',this is an important point, because several preludesappear from their compass and texture not to havebeen composed for the same kind of harpsichord. Thisis nothing to do with whether he instrument oncernedhad two manuals: one can say right away that no pieceof the '48' demands a two-manual harpsichord exceptperhaps the G sharp minor Prelude of book 2, whosesources are ambiguous). Nor is it a question of qualityof instrument making, though the newly discoveredThuringian harpsichord at Eisenach does not suggestthat local instrument making was first class in allrespects. It is more a question of what kind of single-manual harpsichord the composer had in mind orat his fingertips when he was compiling the work.Was it an old-fashioned instrument of the kind ownedby German hurch composers who worked ar from thecentres of up-to-date instrument-making, perhaps inany case not very expertly made? Or was it an ideal,perfect harpsichord of the type aimed at by the mid-century makers of London, Paris, Hamburg and Dres-den? Even for book 2 it could hardly be the latter;chronology does not allow it, though with hindsightwe might be tempted to think that in the Partitas nd themore modern pieces of book 2, J. S. Bach was ahead ofthe builders and was creating harpsichord music thatwould be unrefined on a harpsichord of the day.

But if it is a matter of an old-fashioned instrument,

especially for book 1, in what way was it old-fashioned-in the Flemish or the Italian way? During the 17thcentury Italian harpsichords were directly and indirectlystill very influential in Germany, certainly in the morecourtly musical circles, and though this essay has nofurther statistics on German harpsichord making c1700to offer readers of Hubbard, Russell, van der Meer etc,it certainly wishes to suggest that the 'right' nstrumentwas an old-fashioned, semi-Italianate type. As late asthe 1720s, harpsichord-makers n the metropolis of




Hamburg were still aiming at the drier Italian soundand did not have in mind the sound of the late Englishand French harpsichord. My personal view is that suchan 'old' instrument is also right for the Partitas (Clavier-Ubung I) but not for the Italian Concerto and B minorOverture (Clavier-Ubung II), though I can support thisonly by certain responses to and experiences with the

music itself-for example, the succinct ends thatseem to be required in the A minor and D major Gigues(ex.4) work only on an 'old' instrument. On a Kirckmanor a Taskin, one has to 'open up' the close, holding thechords, playing with rallentandos and generally inter-

preting it as one might a later 18th-century work.'

Ex.4(a) Close of the Gigue from the A minor Partita Bwv827

^^ mr Dr(b) Close of the Gigue from the D major Partita Bwv828

In addition, a single-manual touch will not onlyenable closer attention to be paid to articulation, butone could claim that this touch and articulation aresubjects very close to the purpose and aim of the '48'.Both are old fashioned: the compositional techniqueof the '48' and the kind of instrument that best showsthe nature of this technique. It is a method ofcomposing that has a great deal to do with a method ofplaying. Or, conversely, we learn a great deal abouthow to phrase and articulate the '48' when we bear inmind two prime circumstances of the work: first, thatit was almost certainly written with old-fashioned,single-manual instruments in mind (with all that thatmeans for clarity of counterpoint and immediacy ofsound); and second, that what is concerned is a seriesof pieces each of which is produced by a particulartechnique or method of composition. The second partof this study will be devoted largely to these methodsand thus to how the music should be played.'This too cannot be supported by any kind of documentary evidencethat I know of; it is exactly the kind of subtlety that it is vain to hopea theorist will cover. C. P. E. Bach, Geminiani, Quantz or LeopoldMozart might have mentioned it: but I do not think they have.

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