I could sample small selections, one at a time, presumably even in random order, listen multiple times to each, since they were short, and work my way throughout the two records, which, arranged as they were, must be a comprehensive catalog of something. And I knew, through general cultural osmosis that "fugue" was an important thing. I rolled up my sleeves, grabbed the handle of a sharp mental commitment, and I took my first blow at that pile of bricks. I have been listening to at least one selection from the Well-Tempered Clavier there are two books, 48 preludes and fugues, 96 individual miniature masterpieces nearly every day for over 25 years.
I have never tired of it. I have never stopped learning from it. As sheer musical delight, it has never stopped being a supreme entertainer. With 96 individual songs each unique, beautiful, playful, profound, expertly crafted, infinitely detailed, and so emotional across a vast range of diversity, the Well-Tempered Clavier is a great and very close friend, as well as a teacher, a master, a storyteller, an exquisite singer, and ultimately, a challenge to the listener to cultivate and sustain their finest earsense.
Or a least remain engaged in life long practice. As but a pebble dropped in the pool of Western musical culture, it has rippled out and onward through time creating a vast network of awareness, appreciation and hard work. The history of cultural dialog about the Well-Tempered Clavier is, itself, much like one of the many fugues contained therein, its own drama of call and response, subject and answer.
Mozart studied the Well-Tempered Clavier, transcribing several of Bach's preludes and fugues from the keyboard to a string chamber ensemble. Beethoven played the Well-Tempered Clavier, and "recomposed" it by hand copying several parts so that he might learn and internalize the structure and the process of Bach's counterpoint. Mendelssohn was instrumental in reintroducing Europe to the treasures of Bach and his own works bear the strong imprint of Bach's counterpoint and fugue.
Schumann offered that the Well-Tempered Clavier should be your daily bread. In the 19th century, Chopin was directly inspired by it to compose his own monumental catalog of 24 preludes for piano. Shostakovich's Op.
It was a concentrated and relatively immediate response to hearing a performance of the Well-Tempered Clavier, and has much of the same grace, beauty, drama, profundity and genius. Academic music books on sight singing, melody, counterpoint, fugue and piano pedagogy in general rest on Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier like a church upon its foundation, like a holy city on its sacred ground.
Excellent commercial recordings abound including an array of novel treatments: jazz, vocalese, moog synthesizer, string quartet, as well as the traditional clavichord, harpsichord and piano. There are popular books and numerous web resources as well. Why so much?
As a general study in music and counterpoint, it is par excellence and inexhaustible For the study fugue, it is essential and essentially complete. As ear, mind, heart and spirit training, it is a lifelong practice with profound rewards. It is worth your time. You too can engage in the habits of the masters. You can let it become part of your life. Yes, you can try this alone at home! The Well-Tempered Clavier has much to teach, and the details of its construction are as complex as any mind could desire, but this must always be counter posed with the phenomenon that it is simply beautiful music.
It is very accessible. To apprehend it, you need only your ears and quality attentiveness. But for most of our contemporary listening habits, it is a different and older style of music, and it may take some acculturation to enter its charms. The music is written in a specific style with an implied awareness and set of expectations in the listener. To deepen your sense of the narrative and sharpen your perception of the musical characters, earsense offers a vocabulary of concepts, and a presentation of essential details for each piece including words, images, musical notation and sound clips.
A network of relationships enable you to link different pieces with a variety of associations, furthering your exploration, sharpening your sense of similarity and difference, deepening your relationship with the unique character of each piece, guiding you through all of the terrain. But the key, in the end, is repeated listening, spending time with the music itself. This is the goal and the never ending quest combined in the same experience. It is hoped that the earsense feature will nurture your listening discipline and thereby your listening pleasure.
Intersecting Patterns - the Origin of 48 Jewels The idea for an earsense web-based presentation of the Well-Tempered Clavier was germinated by the intersection of four sources. First came the Musical Heritage Society recording. The music spoke for itself. Next, came the written music, the score for the Well-Tempered Claiver from Schirmer. Following the printed musical notation along with the sound of the recording yielded great insight, confirming aural perceptions, revealing details of craftsmanship that first evaded but then informed the ear, providing an aesthetic experience that was unique to the fascinations of the notation all by itself.
But I was captivated overall by the summary page of the printed volume showing, for each prelude and fugue, the key, the number of voices, and primary musical quote.
I began to use this for my primary notes, augmenting the table with labels for my own discoveries such as "countersubject", "stretto" and "double fugue". The summary table was in fact the table of contents, like a hypertext table showing thumbnail images and a link to the detail "page". No other book from the Baroque era has been so thoroughly scrutinized, cherished, and performed. Contemporary musicians like Beethoven and Mozart also got hold of these manuscripts, in turn influencing the pathway of Western music.
Werckmeister, the advocate of tuning methods. Bach was clearly influenced by these developments, and it is hardly surprising that he chose this exact period to launch his venture - utilizing all keys theoretically available. Bach, however, successfully distinguished the organ from other stringed keyboard instruments.
His own classification of the instruments was also a convenient reference to a distinct character of timbre and sound, including the physical dimensions of the instruments. The conventional view suggests that Bach wanted to perform the work on his clavichord, but accepted the limitations of the keyboard after considering the requirements of future performers and learners.
He had understood the importance of disseminating his work. Another speculation suggests that Bach intended to use equal temperament. Johann Sebastian had also recycled some of the preludes and fugues from different sources.
Bach's autograph in the first book is dated The fact that there are few indications in the score, if any at all, creates the need to make decisions on their own. The present research cannot encompass all the styles available for discussion in these works. Both preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier were based on popular genres of the time such as trio-sonatas, concertos, lute pieces, inventions, ariosos , dances and French overtures.
Once students are familiar with the type of music that was influential in a prelude, there are many more chances to achieve a successful and convincing interpretation of Bach's preludes. A prelude is a piece of music that precedes "something else", a fugue, for instance, or it could be the opening or the introduction of a suite.
It normally has the function of preparing the listeners' ears for a certain affect through the composer's choice of key and time signature. Grove Online. Accessed November 26, The need for notating these improvisations came to provide models for students but the free style remained characteristic of this genre.
These were fundamental features of preludes up to the sixteenth century. Later on they became a more organized form. At the time, a prelude or " praeludium " was more often called intonazione tuning , intrada entrance , ricercare to search or even toccata to play. Preludes from the early sixteenth century could look just like a fantasia or could be semi-measured. Some types of preludes, trying to keep its characteristic "free style" could have no measures at all, being called unmeasured preludes.
The Well-Tempered Clavier is a great example of how much variety is possible to achieve in this genre. The two sets of 24 preludes and fugues - Book 1 dating from and Book 2 from - had pedagogical objectives.
Bach used these preludes to demonstrate techniques, fingering and composition, exploring the title "prelude" since it was used so freely. He was also exploring the entire range of major and minor keys only possible due to the recently created system of temperament - as we use on keyboard instruments today.
Prior to the "new" system, pieces could only be played in certain keys. Other composers exploited this new tuning system and created collections of preludes; John Wilson with his collection of lute preludes, written in the s, and J. F Fisher with his preludes and fugues for organ are some examples. Bach, however, was the most systematic composer to exploit this new tonal system, being the first one to write in all 24 major and minor keys. Bach was heavily influenced by dances since French culture was a strong presence in most places where he lived and worked.
Learning French language, music and dance was part of formal education at the time for high born Germans. Dance and the Music of J. Familiarity with the French manners was very important especially for someone like Bach, who had been introduced to court and participated in its activities many times. In addition to teaching dancing they instructed courtiers in deportment, such as the proper way to bow to a superior or an inferior, how to do honors in passing, what to do when introduced at court, what to do with one's hat and sword, and so on.
There were precise rules which, when followed, resulted in elegance and the appearance of gentility, the height of civilized behavior. French social dance was not only part of court activities but also present at formal balls and important events of the middle-class and aristocrats. Student dramas in Leipzig also incorporated this style.
Places that were bigger cultural and artistic centers could support events that demanded bigger productions such as the ballet and opera. Celle, Berlin and Dresden were some of those places able to maintain a full orchestra of French players for an entire season and Bach undoubtedly saw French dances when he attended operas in those places - French dances or a ballet scene would be typically performed during the interludes between acts.
Little and Jenne also say that Bach knew personally or knew the work of three famous French dancing masters in Saxony. It is interesting to note how music and dance were both part of these composers' training and how intrinsically connected the two realms were, to the point that one person alone could teach dance, write music for it and still play this music on an instrument. Bach was certainly very familiar with French dance and music and, more than that, these were not only important elements in his music-they were also part of his world.
The Well-Tempered Clavier encompasses a huge variety of styles ranging from the stile antico, based on white-key Renaissance motets, to the most modern French court styles. When studying a particular piece from these sets, it is very important to know what type of music we are working with in order to give it the right character, tempo, articulation and style.
Accessed December 7, This style quickly became a pattern also in French opera and ballet overtures. German composers incorporated the style that was also used in openings of suites. This form comprises of a slow, majestic opening, marked by dotted rhythms and suspensions, with a lively fugal second section.
The toccata style often found in this works was originally a piece that displays manual dexterity, always for solo keyboard instrument. Regardless the fact that Bach only wrote few sets of dance suites for the keyboard - the six French Suites , six English Suites , the six Partitas and the French Overtures - other works were heavily influenced by dance styles even when not given dance titles.
The Prelude in Eb major from Book 1 is sarabande-like. Often, there are streams of notes coming out of a chord evoking a lute accompaniment. In a typical sarabande, the accentuation often happens on the second beat but can also happen on the first.
In this case, the emphasis on the first beat is given through ornamentation in measure 4, arpeggiation in measures and a combination of both in measure 8. This prelude presents characteristics of a sarabande. It is important to mention that the dotted quarter notes could be played as double dotted notes, giving a more dramatic character to the piece, which would be very appropriate here. Besides the performance practice approach to double dots and the importance of the dance element to this piece, this prelude would be also a helpful tool for students who need to improve on listening and matching the sound, especially in this case.
Here, the long notes require careful listening through the sound as it decays, in order to match the sound of the following notes. A good preparatory piece for this prelude would be the Sarabande in G minor from the English Suite No.
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