BACH and TUNING By Johnny Reinhard © 2009 Bust of Johann Sebastian Bach in a small park in Anhalt-Cöthen Photo: Johnny Reinhard Dedicated to Ted Coons Palace entrance in Anhalt-Cöthan Photo: Johnny Reinhard Bach and Tuning by Johnny Reinhard © 2009 212-517-3550 / [email protected] www.afmm.org American Festival of Microtonal Music 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5-FW New York, New York 10021 USA 2 FOREWORD A new Baroque chromaticism was born in the late 17th century, and Johann Sebastian Bach was its master. Following the needs and interests of organists, and as a natural consequence of the obsolescence of meantone, an original tuning emerged. Keyboardists have since transitioned from supporting artists into virtuosic soloists. The irregular-sized steps of well temperament, not equal temperament, was the compromise entered upon to cement chromaticism to the Baroque. Among the heroes in this endeavor is Andreas Werckmeister, the pioneer who ushers in the concept of a closed circle of twelve major and twelve minor keys in music. Other protagonists include: Johann Gottfried Walther, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Princess Anna Amalia van Preussen, and Johann Nicolaus Forkel. Irregularly shaped scales provide resources for a different narrative, a catalyst to perceiving a missing dimension in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. The aim here is to return lost color to Bach’s music which has been stripped away by equal temperament hegemony. Finally, there is good reason to re-record the masterworks. 3 Foreword 3 CONTENTS 4 Chapter 1: Johann Gottfried Walther 7 Walther was like a brother to J.S. Bach throughout his lifetime, an eyewitness to his cousin’s musical world, and author of the first music lexicon of the German Baroque. Chapter 2: Dieterich Buxtehude 17 Buxtehude was renowned for his organ improvisations, and had a profound influence on J.S. Bach. This chapter examines the primacy of virtuosic improvisation in necessitating a circle of keys. Chapter 3: Andreas Werckmeister 31 Werckmeister was responsible for a revolution in tuning through his published temperaments as alternatives to the limitations of meantone, and in spite of the obviousness of equal temperament. Chapter 4: Tuning 47 The twelve major and minor keys are examined, key by key, in cents (1200 cents to the octave). Comparison is made between quarter and sixth comma meantone, Werckmeister III, IV, V & VI tunings, Kirnberger II & III tunings, Trost tuning, and Neidhardt I, II & III tunings. 4 Chapter 5: Bach Cities 73 Bach worked prominently in Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Anhalt-Cöthen, and Leipzig. The primary church organs in these cities were tuned prior to Bach’s employment and appear to have retained their tuning. Chapter 6: Thuringian Aesthetic 93 The Bach family belonged to the Thuringian tribe in central Germany. Thuringians were notably fascinated with tuning keyboard instruments and who often praised the benefits of the unequalness of the scale. Chapter 7: Notation 110 Notation gives valuable clues for identifying an intended tuning system, while the compositional usage of the notes in indicative of aesthetic prerogatives. Works examined include The Well-Tempered Clavier, Six Brandenburg Concertos, St. Matthew’s Passion, and A Musical Offering. Chapter 8: Johann Philipp Kirnberger 130 Kirnberger, a former private student of Bach’s in Leipzig, was a tuning pedagogue notorious for his promulgation of the Bach legacy. Kirnberger introduced his own tuning innovations for the Classical era. Chapter 9: Refreshed Perspectives 141 After arranging the prevailing possibilities for Bach’s tuning, categorically, a multiple choice question is constructed that by definition can leave only one single answer, the direct result of eliminating all other possibility. Appendix I Hehr Translation of Werckmeister’s Musicalische Temperatur 155 Appendix II Compact Disc Early Liner Notes (PITCH 200202) 215 Appendix III Glossary 217 Bibliography 218 Acknowledgements 229 Endnotes 231 5 6 A pleasant brook may well the ear’s delight inspire. 7 Johann Gottfried Walther He should have been called ‘ocean’ instead of brook. Ludwig van Beethoven CHAPTER 1 Johann Gottfried Walther Johann Gottfried Walther The reason I chose to begin this book with Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748) is his lifelong relationship with Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Walther, as both blood relative and close friend, was an especially close eyewitness to Bach’s private musical world. Walther was a keen participant, an acute observer of his musical times, and a thorough researcher for the historical record in music. Only a half year apart in age,1 Walther and Bach shared similar interests in musical pedagogy and performance. There was obvious chemistry between them, and genuine respect, which all points to their being the best of friends. Indeed, it could be said Johann Sebastian and Johann Gottfried were as close as brothers: in fact, Johann Sebastian Bach was godfather to Walther’s first son, Johann Gottfried Walther II. Walther and Bach shared the honors of being godfathers to Heinrich Nicolaus Trebs’s son. It may be said that Johann Sebastian was probably closer to Walther than he was to his own flesh and blood brothers. The oldest Bach brother had a rocky start with the youngest brother, eldest brother Johann Christoph seems to have genuinely annoyed Johann Sebastian when he stole away his baby brother’s recopying studies of earlier composers. Middle brother Johann Jacob put a great physical distance between himself and his siblings; Johann Jacob first apprenticed as a piper in the tradition of his late father, Johann Ambrosius, and then went off to join the Swedish military, eventually to find himself in Istanbul studying flute privately with Johann Joachim Quantz’s teacher. 8 It actually makes more sense to consider Walther as more of a “brother” than as a distant cousin. Walther was actually related to Johann Sebastian in different ways due to the complex business of how wives were chosen at that time and how families were constituted.2 Walther’s mother was of the Lämmerhirt family which earlier joined the Bach family when Walther’s aunt Hedwig Lämmerhirt married Johann Bach of Erfurt in 1637. Bach’s mother was Hedwig’s half- sister. More to the point, Johann Sebastian married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach (1684-1720). They had already resided together in the very same Arnstadt building, popularly known as “The Golden Crown,” where the Mayor of Arnstadt, Maria Barbara’s uncle Martin Feldhaus, also lived. The cousins, both orphaned, lived within the warm bosom of the greater Bach family. Maria Barbara’s father died in 1694, the same year as Johann Sebastian’s mother. In Bach’s mind, childhood friend Georg Erdmann (1682-1736) was a “brother.” They had become close friends soon after Johann Sebastian arrived in Ohrdruf, following the death of his father in 1695. Later, they traveled together as friends north to Lüneburg for further academic studies. Georg Erdmann grew up in Leina in Thuringia, near Gotha, and later joined the Russian army as a diplomat for a Russian prince in Riga. Soon after securing his Leipzig position, Johann Sebastian actually addressed his old friend as “brother” on July 28, 1726: “Noble and Most Honored Sir and (If Still Permissible) Esteemed Mr. Brother” (Bach Reader, p. 125). In the letter, Bach basically wrote about the challenge of relocating to Leipzig. Bach clearly had an expandable view of what constituted a brother, not concerned with a mere blood relation technicality. At the beginning of his own contribution to Johann Mattheson’s book of musician autobiographies, Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (1740), Walther acknowledged that he was both a distant relative of the Bach family through Hedwig Lämmerhirt, and a cousin through Maria Elisabetha Lämmerhirt. Inexplicably, J.S. Bach refused requests to send his own autobiography for publication to Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), arguably the most prolific writer on music in his time. Mattheson referred to Walther as “my honored friend” in his book, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (p. 76). The Lämmerhirt family of Erfurt provided the maternal bloodline to J.S. Bach’s genetic makeup and played an important role in his eventual success, in addition to a great many other Bachs and Walthers. Johann Sebastian received a financial inheritance from the Lämmerhirt side of the family. This money came from the very same uncle, Tobias Lämmerhirt, Bach shared with Walther. Uncle Tobias’ Last Will and Testament also provided money for Walther’s mother.3 The Lämmerhirts were apparently very close as a family, many of whom were in the furrier business. And their women were unusually attracted to musicians. Johann Gottfried Walther’s mother, Martha Dorothea Lämmerhirt (1655-1727), was the rare Lämmerhirt woman who married a non-musician, Johann Stephen Walther (1650-1731). The renowned Albert Schweitzer explained that Walther originally “was intended for the study of law” but escaped that destiny thanks to his obvious musical talent (Schweitzer, I:43). Walther was appointed in 1707 to a lifetime post as organist at the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Weimar (now called the Herderkirche), not too long after Bach received his Arnstadt post. 9 Johann Sebastian Bach’s maternal grandfather, Valentin Lämmerhirt (1585-1665), was Johann Gottfried Walther’s maternal great-grandfather. To add to the complexity, he had a son also named Valentin Lämmerhirt (1608-1665). This younger Valentin would be J.G. Walther’s grandfather. Both Valentins died in 1665, about twenty years before either J.S. Bach or J.G. Walther were born. Walther’s extensive study of organ performance and composition in Erfurt with his cousin Johann Bernard Bach was another personal connection to the Bach tradition. Johann Bernhard Bach’s father was brother to Maria Barbara’s father. Johann Sebastian Bach’s mother, Maria Elisabetha Lämmerhirt (1644-1694), in conjunction with her niece, Walther’s mother, eleven years younger than Maria Elisabetha, would together connect the greatest German music scholar of his time with its greatest composer of music.