The Bach Temperament

[Frank Emerson]

Bravo!

Many years ago, when I was a university technician, I had Owen Jorgensen
come to do a temperament recital.  Owen, his son, another tuner, and myself
spent the entire day tuning twelve pianos to different temperaments. 
Sadly, the recital was poorly attended, but I was astonished at the impact
of various temperaments on the appropriate musical literature.  I am always
delighted to see historical temperament given due notice!

Frank Emerson
pianoguru at earthlink.net


> [Original Message]
> From: <A440A at aol.com>
> To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
> Date: 11/20/2006 10:47:24 PM
> Subject: The Bach Temperament
>
> Greetings, 
>       Well, I tried it.  The tuning scheme that Mr. Lehman extrapolated
from 
> the inscription on Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier".  The customer was 
> astonished at the effect.  This is a customer that had been using  a
later 
> well-temperament, and he felt that the Bach tuning was a large
improvement.  He plays a 
> lot of Chopin, as well as Beethoven, Haydn, and Bach.  
>      It seems that Bach knew what he was doing( does that surprise
anyone?).  
> I would encourage tuners to try it and have a listen, this thing has some 
> serious claim to authenticity and fits well with virtually all the music
I have 
> heard played on it, jazz and 20th century standard stuff, too.
> Regards, 
>
> Ed Foote RPT 
> http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
> www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
>  
>