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BACH: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (Preludes and Fugues 1-8)
GLENN GOULD, PIANIST
Produced by Joseph Scianni and Paul Myers
The two parts of the Well-Tempered Clavier belong to widely
separated periods. The first was finished in 1722, as appears from
the dating of the autograph by Bach himself; the second was com-
piled in 1744, as we learn from the Hamburg organist Schwenke,
who in 1781 made a copy of it from an autograph (now lost) be-
longing to Emmanuel, the title-page of which bore the date 1744.
In Friedemann’s Klavierbiichlein of 1720 are found eleven pre-
ludes from the First Part, among them the one in C major. Bach’s
revisions of this and three others (in C minor, D minor and E
minor) made it probable that the majority of the pieces of the
Well-Tempered Clavier did not achieve their present perfection
at the first stroke, but were continually worked over by the com-
poser with a view to giving them a form that would satisfy him.
Gerber, in his Dictionary, says that Bach composed the First
Part of the Well-Tempered Clavier at a place where time hung
heavily on his hands and no musical instrument was available.
There may be some truth in this. Gerber’s father had been Bach’s
pupil in the early Leipzig years, so that the tradition may quite
well be based on some remark of Bach’s, especially as we know
that Gerber was studying the Well-Tempered Clavier at that time,
and Bach himself played it to him thrice. Bach may well have been
in such a situation during some journey with Prince Leopold of
Céthen, when the small portable clavier that figures in the list of
the Court instruments would be left behind. The tradition is at
any rate correct to this extent, that the majority of pieces in the
Well-Tempered Clavier were written in a relatively short time.
This manner of production was indeed characteristic of Bach. The
Second Part was written after he had practically finished with
cantata writing.
A number of preludes and fugues, however, existed for some
time before Bach conceived the idea of a collection. This holds
good for the Second Part no less than for the First. In both there
are pieces which, in their original form, really go back almost to
the composer’s earliest years. Anyone thoroughly conversant wih
Bach will gradually discover for himself which pieces belong to
this category. He will at once see, for example, that of the preludes
of the First Part, those in C minor and B-flat major do not show
the same maturity as most of the others. That the A minor fugue
from the same part is a youthful work is shown not only by a
certain thematic looseness and lack of design, but also by the fact
that it is evidently written for the pedal clavicembalo. The final
note in the bass, prolonged through five bars, cannot be sustained
- by the hands alone, but needs the pedal, as is often the case in
the early works. Otherwise the Well-Tempered Clavier, like the
Inventions and the Symphonies, is designed primarily for the
clavichord, not for the clavicembalo. Bach himself does not appear
to have called the 1744 collection the Second Part of the Well-
Tempered Clavier, but simply “Twenty-four new preludes and
fugues.”
He inscribed the work completed in Céthen the Well-Tempered
Clavier by way of celebrating a victory that gave the musical
world of that day a satisfaction which we can easily comprehend.
On the old keyed instruments it had become impossible to play
Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major ©
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in all keys, since the fifths and thirds were tuned naturally, accord-
ing to the absolute intervals given by the divisions of the string.
By this method each separate key was made quite true; the others,
however, were more or less out of tune, the thirds and fifths that
were right for their own key not agreeing among each other. So a
plan had to be found for tuning fifths and thirds not absolutely
but relatively—to “temper” them in such a way that though not
quite true in any one key they would be bearable in all. The
question had really become acute in the sixteenth century, when
the new custom arose of allotting a separate string to each note on
the clavichord; previously the same string had been used for sev-
eral notes,.the tangents dividing the string into the proper length
for the desired tone. The organ also imperatively demanded a
tempered .tuning.
The question occupied the attention of the Italians Gicseffe
Zarlino (1558) and Pietro Aron (1529). At a later date the Halber-
stadt organ builder Andreas Werkmeister (1645-1706) hit upon a
method of tuning that still holds good in principle. He divided
the octave into twelve equal semitones, none of which was quite
true. His treatise on Musical Temperament appeared in 1691. The
problem was solved; henceforth composers could write in all keys.
A fairly long time elapsed, however, before all the keys hitherto
avoided came into practical use. The celebrated theoretician
Heinichen, in his treatise on thorough-bass, published in 1728—
i.e. six years after the origin of Bach’s work—confessed that people
seldom wrote in B major and A-flat major, and practically never
in F-sharp minor and C-sharp major; which shows that he did
not know Bach’s collection of preludes and fugues.
The title of the First Part runs thus in the autograph:—
“The Well-Tempered Clavier, or preludes and fugues in all
tones and semitones, both with the tertiam majorem or Ut, Re,
Mi, and the tertiam minorem or Re, Mi, Fa. For the profit and use
of young musicians desirous of knowledge, as also of those who
are already skilled in this studio, especially by way of pastime;
set out and composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Kapellmeister to
the Grand Duke of Anhalt-Céthen and Director of his chamber
music. Anno 1722.” |
The Well-Tempered Clavier is one of those works by which we
can measure the progress of artistic culture from one generation to
another. When Rochlitz met with these preludes and fugues at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, only a few of them really
appealed to him. He placed a tick against these, and was aston-
ished to find how the number of these ticks increased as he played
the works. If some one had told this first of Bach prophets that in
another hundred years every musically-minded man would have
regarded each piece in the collection as perfectly easy to compre-
hend, he would hardly have believed it.
_ The fact that the work today has become common property may
console us for the other fact that an analysis of it is almost as
impossible as it is to depict a wood by enumerating the trees and
describing their appearance. We can only repeat again and again—
take them and play them and penetrate into this world for your-
self. Aesthetic elucidation of any kind must necessarily be super-
Prelude and Fugue No. 4 in C-sharp Minor
20:01
COVER PHOTO: COLUMBIA RECORDS PHOTO STUDIO—HENRY PARKER
performed on editing consoles hand-tooled by Columbia’s engineering staff to
accommodate any number of channels. The transfer of master tape to master
lacquer is made via a Westrex or Ortofon cutter installed on a Scully lathe
equipped with automatic variable pitch and electronic depth controls. Before
‘production is begun, a master pressing is compared to the final tape (A-B
checked). It is only after the recording has passed this critical test that Colum-
bia’s engineers give the final approval for manufacture, secure in the knowledge
that each Stereo “360 SOUND’’ disc will. have the same full-bodied, multi-
dimensional sound as that originally recorded in the studio.
Library of Congress catalog card number R 62-1346 applies to this record.
Stereo—MS 6408 Ff COLUMBIA
Monaural—ML 5808
MASTERWORKS
ficial here. What so fascinates us in the work is not the form or
the build of the piece, but the world-view that is mirrored in it.
It is not so much that we enjoy the Well-Tempered Clavier as that
we are edified by it. Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter—to
all these it gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported
from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a
new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplat-
ing hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless
water.
Nowhere so well as in the Well-Tempered Clavier are we made
to realize that art was Bach’s religion. He does not depict natural
soul-states, like Beethoven in his sonatas, no striving and strug-
gling toward a goal, but the reality of life felt by a spirit always
conscious of being superior to life, a spirit in which the most
contradictory emotions, wildest grief and exuberant cheerfulness
are simply phases of a fundamental superiority of soul. It is this
that gives the same transfigured air to the sorrow-laden E-flat
minor prelude of the First Part and the carefree, volatile prelude in
G major in the Second Part. Whoever has once felt this wonderful
tranquility has comprehended the mysterious spirit that has here
expressed all it knew and felt of life in the secret language of tone,
and will render Bach the thanks we render only to the great souls
to whom it is given to reconcile men with life and bring them
peace.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
(From J. S. Bach, trans. Ernest Newman)
“The foremost pianist this continent has produced in re-
cent decades,” wrote critic Alfred Frankenstein in High
Fidelity Magazine. “A pianist of divine guidance,” added
Jay Harrison in the New York Herald Tribune. A distin-
guished European critic, Heinrich Neuhaus, noted that he
plays Bach “as if he were one of the pupils of the Thomas-
kirche cantor. ... The music seems to speak through his
playing.”” Such is the praise that has greeted each appear-
ance of Glenn Gould, the distinguished Canadian pianist,
who made his recording debut with a now-classic perform-
ance of the Goldberg Variations (ML 5060) and has gone
on to demonstrate his versatility in the divergent worlds of
Berg, Schoenberg and Krenek (ML 5336), Beethoven’s late
sonatas (ML 5130), Haydn and Mozart (ML 5274), Brahms
(ML 5637/MS 6237*) and Richard Strauss (ML 5741/ MS
6341*). Further aspects of this unique musician’s achieve-
ment are revealed in his richly melodic String Quartet, Op. 1
recorded by the Symphonia Quartet, (ML 5578/MS 6178*)
and an electrifying performance of Bach’s Art of the Fugue
(ML 5738/MS 6338*) played on the organ. The present
recording is the first in a series which will encompass the
encire Well-Tempered Clavier. 7
*Stereo
Prelude and Fugue No.7 in E-flat Major
Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-flat Minor
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