![]() Russian 19th and 20th century composers Dmitri Shostakovich, who wrote 24 preludes and fugues, and Alexander Scriabin, who also composed 24 preludes using every key and designed colors to go with them, were were heavily inspired by Bach. The pianist and composer Hans von Bülow called the "Well-Tempered Clavier" "the Old Testament for piano players." While Bach's passion works and cantatas initially lost importance after his death, his organ and piano works set standards that are still maintained. The theory goes that on a visit with the court orchestra to the spa town in the current-day Czech Republic in 1720, Bach was "bored" and spent his spare time composing. "Another theory leads to Karlsbad," said Jörg Hansen, referring to the period when Bach was Kapellmeister (master of the chapel choir or orchestra) for Prince Leopold - ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Köthen in what was then the Holy Roman Empire. This could have been the prison cell, but the exact location is not mentioned. In 1790, the German composer and author Ernst Ludiwg Gerber wrote that Bach composed his defining work "in a place where discontent, long hours and a lack of any kind of musical instruments made this pastime difficult for him." The more extensive work was performed by Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt at the Leipzig Bach Festival.Īccording to legend, Bach began composing the "Well-Tempered Clavier" during four weeks in a prison cell in Weimar in 1717 - his crime was wanting to leave the service of Duke Wilhelm Ernst. Twenty years after Part 1, Johann Sebastian Bach composed another 48 preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys. 'Well-Tempered Clavier' composed in prison? This trick gave composers to freedom to create without restrictions, Hansen added. "In the 'Well-Tempered Clavier', no key is tuned purely, and that's the trick it's a compromise through which all keys are playable," explains Jörg Hansen, director of the Bach Haus in Eisenach. One of them is the "Well-Tempered Tuning," which the theorist and organist Andreas Werckmeister designed in the 17th century. In Eisenach, where Bach was born in 1685, an exhibition at the Bach Haus (running July 1 through November 6) allows visitors to recreate the tunings common at that time on a synthesizer. Today however, all 48 pieces can be played on one standardized tuning, notes Michael Maul. Playing a different key with the same tuning could sound off, meaning you had to tune the instrument differently for each key you wanted to play. ![]() In the 17th and 18th centuries, the intervals between different notes within a key was not yet as uniform as it is today, with all notes a semitone apart.īut 300 years ago, harpsichords were tuned to sound "pure," as the younger Bach so admired. Andras Schiff is presented with the Bach Medal The art of 'beautiful' instrument tuningīach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach once wrote that his father's harpsichord was tuned "so purely and correctly that all keys sounded beautiful and pleasing."
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