The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach
Part one
Marco Bellano
Listen to a complete performance of The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian
Bach may not be easy.
This does not depend on the lesser or greater degree of musical competence
of the listener, but by the very nature of this work. Ralph Kirkpatrick, harpsichordist and
one of the greatest musicologists of the twentieth century, in the first chapter of his fundamental
The interpretation of the Well-Tempered Clavier clarifies the problem well: «The effect of
a complete execution [of this work] […] it is that of variety and richness
literally overwhelming".
The Well-Tempered Clavier (CBT from now on), Indeed, it is one of the musical creations
most complex in history. Of the many possible levels of interpretation, each is
satisfying in its own way, but none totally exhaustive. There were complications
also created by the "dead tracks" of research, studies that for wanting too much to demonstrate, or
seek originality at all costs, they have involuntarily given up on understanding, a
penetrate the rational objectivity of Bach's work. Kirkpatrick writes: "Actually, and
could measure the importance of a work of art by how much nonsense it is
capable of arousing. In terms of the amount of nonsense it inspired, the CBT occupies
quite a high place, even if the overall amount of writing about it is not
as big as one might expect".
Because of this, it may be useful to have an analysis tool that is the simplest and most
objectively possible, That, rather than commenting on the included preludes and fugues one by one
in the work, explore the different “layers” of this musical monument step by step, without
claim to provide any conclusions on the matter and leaving the listener free to
choose the reading level that most appeals to you, to possibly delve deeper into the topic
following, by consulting more specific writings.
The simplest method to conduct such an analysis is perhaps to follow Bach himself, doing
guided by his autograph writing: the title page of the First Book of the CBT, preserved
Press the German State Library in Berlin.
The frontispiece
At page, written with neat calligraphy and adorned with simple and sinuous decorations a
penna, bears this title:
The well-tempered piano, or Preludes, and fugues through all tones and semitonia,
So wohl the third major oder Ut Re Mi anlangend, als auch tertiam minorem oder Re Mi
Regarding. For the benefit and use of musical youth who are eager to learn, as
There is also a special way for those who are already in this studio to spend their time
and made by Johann Sebastian Bach, p.[ro] t.[gallery]: HochF.[princely] Anhalt-
Cöthenic Capel masters and director of their chamber music. Anno 1722.
The Italian translation is: “The well-tempered keyboard, that is, preludes and fugues in all tones and
semitones, including both the major third, that is, ut re mi, than the minor third, i.e. king
it makes me, for the profit and use of musical youth eager to learn, come
also for the particular pleasure of those who are already skilled in this art, compiled and brought to
dates there Johann Sebastian Bach, currently Kapellmeister and director of
chamber music of His Highness the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen. Anno 1722”.
The insights that can be obtained from this document will be obtained backwards, starting from the bottom. In
this way, more general aspects will be encountered first, of a historical nature, then
get to more technical topics.
… Johann Sebastian Bach, currently Kapellmeister and director of
chamber music of His Highness the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen. Anno 1722: note
historical-biographical
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21 March 1685 to Eisenach, in Thuringia, and died in Leipzig
il 28 July 1750. In truth, the day of his birth would be more precisely the 31 March;
Protestant Germany had in fact been slow to adapt to the calendar reform
commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, remaining until 1700 “back” by about ten
days compared to the rest of the world.
Bach was part of an important lineage of musicians; himself nephew and son of organists and
Kantoren settled in Thuringia since the 16th century, he was in turn the father of important artists:
three children from his first marriage – Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel e
Johann Gottfried Bernhard –, and two of the thirteen children he had with his second wife Anna
Magdalena, Johann Cristoph Friedrich e Johann Christian, they played a prominent role in
definition of musical taste in the transition between Baroque and Classicism.
The future Maestro received a solid classical education at the Lateinschule in Eisenach;
after his father's death, In the 1695, he moved to Ohrdruf with his brother Johann Christian.
His musical training was completed through the assiduous and precise study of composers
tedeschi, Italians and French. His first significant position was that of organist at the
New Church in Arnstadt, from 1703. In the same period he began to compose.
After a short stay in Mühlhausen, he became a chamber musician and organist at the
Weimar court; fu promosso a concertmaster nel 1714. Despite having composed in such
place the first cantatas and the first important works for organ and harpsichord, Bach
however he felt that the environment was not satisfactory, also for its formality
equivalent to a ducal valet, required to wear a livery. He asked for a long time
a leave, which was finally granted to him, making him free to go to Cöthen to the court of
principe Leopold, young and passionate about music.
Those of Cöthen were essentially Bach's most fruitful and happiest years: free from
services at school and church (the court was Calvinist), he was counted among the tallest
court officials and had plenty of time to dedicate himself to composition, delving deeper
in particular chamber music and works for keyboard instruments. At this time
in fact, the six French Suites date back, the six English Suites, he Clavierbüchlein, the six Sonatas
for violin and harpsichord, the three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, the six Concerts
Brandeburghesi, the Sonatas and Partitas for violin, the six Suites for cello.
It was in this fortunate period that The Well-Tempered Clavier was also conceived.
Actually, we have very few certainties regarding the genesis of this work. First of all, And
The order in which Bach wrote the preludes and fugues is doubtful. In particular, for the first book,
few traces of the composition process survive. It is certain, however, that some pieces
of the first part appear in different versions (preliminaries, evidently), In the
Clavierbüchlein in front of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, a small collection of pieces that Bach
put together for his eldest son, dated 1720. Eleven preludes appear in it
CBT, often copied incompletely or in abbreviated versions. Numerous slight changes,
Furthermore, they suggest how particularly the development process was
well-groomed and hardworking.
Then there is another interesting testimony, coming from the son of a Bach pupil,
Heinrich Nikolaus Gerber. It is therefore reported by Ernst Ludwig Gerber, in his
Historical-biographical lexicon of the sound artists, this fact: his father knew that Il
Well-Tempered Clavier had been composed in a relatively short time, “per
chase away boredom and bad mood” while Bach found himself in a place where he had no to
no tools available and where he had nothing else to do. Gerber also states that
his father had been able to attend three performances of the complete work, carried out by
Bach himself during music lessons. This information is certainly valuable, ma
they should not be considered absolutely true; in particular, the news about three
full executions might be an exaggeration in retrospect.
The frontispiece, as seen, bears the date «Anno 1722». Actually, on the manuscript is
also reported, in passing, the year 1732. It is therefore a ten-year-old autograph
after the first draft. Anyway, it is reasonable to assume that all the songs contained
in the First Book of the CBT, apart from a few exceptions, have been outlined or completed
between 1720 and the 1722.
The second part of the CBT was instead composed in a different period. Bach, In the 1723,
he left his post at the court of Cöthen to go to Leipzig, where he took on the role of
Kantor and director of church music. Due to the considerable amount of work that
the new assignment entailed, the keyboard compositions were momentarily
put in the background (although other memorable works were born in this period,
including the Goldberg Variations). He returned to the prelude and fugue genre only in his last
decade of life. In fact it seems that in fact the second part of the CBT was compiled between
il 1739 and the 1742, or perhaps more likely until 1744, as the analysis seems to indicate
of the watermark of the only autograph that has reached us, traced in 1896 and belonged - it seems- a
Muzio Clementi. Bach, using the same tonal scheme as the first part, collected in
Second Book of youthful works and works of maturity, as he also did in the case of others
important cyclical works such as The Musical Offering or The Art of Fugue.
However, there remains a reasonable margin of uncertainty surrounding the genesis of the work in
its whole; however, they can still be identified, to conclude, some precedents
historians that Bach may have kept in mind during the composition work. In particular,
the “keyboard temperament” (of which more will be said later) had been treated theoretically
In the 1686-87 by organist and organ builder Andreas Werckmeister. They had already been
attempted systematic uses of tonalities in cycles of compositions, as happens in the work of
Bach: for example, Johann Pachelbel had used, in his harpsichord suites,
17 shades of 24 available. But most of all, Ariadne's precedents are noteworthy
Musica di Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, of the 1702, a collection of preludes and fugues
for organ in 19 major and minor keys, plus the Phrygian mode on E, e la exemplary
Organist rehearsal by Johann Matteson, of the 1719, which contains exercises for
realization of the continuous bass in all twenty-four keys.
…for the profit and use of musical youth eager to learn, come
also for the particular pleasure of those who are already skilled in this art... : luck and
very brief history of the interpretation of The Well-Tempered Clavier
Bach never published the CBT in his lifetime, despite the work having achieved a certain fame
in the large group of his students and friends. The reasons are still unclear today,
but a reasonable guess can be made: probably the composer believed that the
sales could be too limited due to the musical style widespread at the time, lo
“sentimental” and “gallant” style, which his preludes and fugues evidently did not possess
at all. Proof of Bach's possible fear is found in the edition of the Six Partites
for harpsichord (the first work he published), which are indicated in the title as
"Haberdashery", which is absolutely not true.
Furthermore, many doubts remain unresolved regarding the destination of this work; although in fact in the
frontispiece explicitly talks about "musical youth" (therefore of an educational purpose) e
of “pleasure” for experts, i preludi e, especially, the escapes, they undeniably have a
processing complexity that goes well beyond these declared intentions. It is also uncertain
target tool (the doubt is essentially resolved between harpsichord or
clavicordo), but we will talk about this later; However, it should now be underlined that the fortune of the CBT
depends largely on the birth of a musical school linked to an instrument that
Bach, basically, left out "explore": the piano.
In fact, Bach permanently entered the classical piano repertoire after its publication
of the CBT edition edited by Carl Czerny, of the 1837 (preceded by several editions a
press that followed in the half century following Bach's death). Czerny,
in the preface, claims to pass on his memories of performing preludes and fugues from
part of Ludwig van Beethoven. The fact is interesting: despite Czerny's revision
is substantially unreliable, however, it testifies to the fact that the interest in Bach did not exist
had never been extinguished in the classical period (we also have evidence of studies carried out by
Mozart e Haydn sul CBT), despite the oblivion in which Bach's name was objectively
fallen, due to the tastes and needs of the general public.
Czerny's edition also paved the way for the modern educational use of CBT. Come
writes Kirkpatrick, «since the mid-nineteenth century, CBT has taken on the status of a bible
musical. […] It has constituted an inexhaustible source for piano and organ practice, per
the study of composition, for student practice in musical analysis, and for i
advocates of every conceivable type of music theory". And not only: it was also a source
of inspiration for the creation of new works. Fryderyk Chopin, one of the most important
CBT fans, he created a very famous cycle of twenty-four Preludes, in all shades
(although arranged in a different order from Bach's); in the first of his Studies op.
10, Furthermore, he carried out an intelligent paraphrase of the first Prelude of the First Book.
Around the same time, the number of public performances of Bach's music began
to grow considerably. The event with which the beginning is usually coincident
“official” of this “rebirth of Bach” is Mendelssohn's performance of the
Passion according to St. Matteo, at the Berliner Singakademie, a hundred years after his
composition. Several printed editions of Bach's works were also edited, among which
Sources from Schumann and Robert Franz, which however did not fail to arouse controversy: il
Bach's language was in fact adapted to the taste of the 19th century with adaptations and
remodelings of dubious effectiveness. They don't fall into this category, naturally, the
transcriptions of organ works made by Liszt e, further on, from Busoni, of interest
artistic still very high today. Fortunately, a new direction of research was born
In the 1850, when the editorial policy of the editions of the Bachgesellschaft was defined,
among the most accurate and philologically correct. Yes to this “conservative” setting
they then joined, around the 1888, the first attempts to reconstruct "period" instruments
(come, precisely, the harpsichord), to try to recover the original sound in the
executions; the operation was appreciable, but unfortunately still today, in many ways,
utopian. There are many controversies regarding the use of "ancient" instruments built in the modern age;
However, this is not the time to delve deeper into this issue. Today the revaluation of
Bach's music can be said to be complete, supported by vital research in the field
musicological and interpretative.
One of the very first performers of CBT was probably Beethoven, born in 1770; it's to him and
It is therefore his era that we need to go back to, wanting to identify a beginning for one
very brief history of the interpretation of this Bach work. Of course not
we possess no audio documents dating back to this period, but only theoretical writings. The
the first testimonies that we can hear today are much later: it deals with, per
example, of the first Prelude and Fugue of the First Book recorded by Busoni, or pianola rolls
of the second Prelude and Fugue of the First Book, performed by Felix Weingartner, he was born in
twelfth of the second book, performed by Raoul Pugno.
However, we know that before 1930 a large number of pianists had performed in
I publish the entire CBT; among them we remember Joseph Rubinstein, Charles Hallé, Edward
Ripples, and especially Edwin Fischer. In reality Fischer performed only twenty-four Preludes and
leak, between the First and Second Books, curiously interspersing them with the twelve Studies op. 10
on Chopin.
Dal 1950, bicentenary of Bach's death, the tradition was further consolidated
performance linked to the harpsichord, both in the vein linked to the "modern" instrument (Meaning what
modified to some extent, like the tool used by Wanda Landowska), both in that
who preferred to use authentic "period" instruments. Performances of the were also published
CBT al clavicordo. Strange experiments were also reported, like Gunnar's
Johansen, who recorded the work using a two-keyboard piano, invented by
Emmanuel Moor. The fifties and sixties were also the years of the historic ones
recordings by Rosalyn Tureck and Glenn Gould, innovative in sound research and
extremely original in their playing style. Of a character opposite to these, ma
fundamental reference for every executor to the CBT plan, it is the interpretation of
Sviatoslav Richter, of the seventies, which gives the cycle an extraordinary unity and
enhances Bach's polyphony in a personal way, focusing in particular on
expressive value of the subject of the fugues.
Other valuable interpretations (In the flower, Schiff) they were accompanied by new cycles of executions
public, on the piano as on other keyboard instruments, on particular occasions such as
tricentenary of Bach's birth (1985) or the “Bachian year”, il 2000 (which celebrated i 250
years after death).