Exciting Stuff

Bradley Lehman's new article (PDF) in Early Music magazine poses a Da Vinci Code-like theory on Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: The "Well" Temperament (an inexact translation from German) that Bach used was actually scribbled in shorthand at the top of the title page!

We've known that the WTC tuning was different from our contemporary equal temperament, but it was presumed that the intended tuning scheme was the one Bach picked up from Werckmeister. Not so, according to this article - he specified an altered one on the title page (here or here).

One of the important points of this theory is the "C" on the second squiggle from the right (just above the "C" in "Clavier"):

That provides for how to tune the C, and you can work outward by 5ths from there. I'm not going to get into the the process for translation here, but the answer which the author worked out was: five 1/6th comma 5ths F-C-G-D-A-E; three pure 5ths E-B-F#-C#; three 1/12th comma 5ths C#-G#-D#-A#; end. The key below explains it - it's upside down (rotated 180) because it's easier to copy by hand that way:

In 1722 when Bach applied for the teaching and supervisory position at Leipzig, he prepared final copies of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Aufrichtige Anleitung, and the Orgel-Buchlein (among other pieces) as a curriculum vitae for his written audition. While Bach composed none of these works especially for the Leipzig audition, it appears that the final copies were drawn up expressly for submission.

The reason this is important is that Bach was applying for a position which called for a total musician, and he was looking to convey that he was just that. From composition, to teaching, to performance, to organizing a program, to tuning, he had to demonstrate that he was knowledgable and facile in all these disciplines. The position was formerly held by Kuhnau, and the wording in the middle of the title page is a parody of Kuhnau's Neuer Clavier-Übung (1689, 1692). By writing pieces in all the keys that Kuhnau didn't, and attaching the appropriate tuning scheme through which to hear his work, Bach was hoping to demonstrate that he was everything that Kuhnau offered and more.

There's a lot more to this theory and tale, but I'm not going to rewite what has already been elaborated upon brilliantly in the article itself. It may not be possible to definitively prove or disprove it, but check it out - it's fascinating.