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"Open Well-Tempered Clavier" Project Complete; Score and Recording Online

Posted by timothy on from the make-benefit-glorious-nation dept.

rDouglass writes Open source music notation software MuseScore, and pianist Kimiko Ishizaka, have completed the Open Well-Tempered Clavier project and released a new studio recording and digital score online, under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0, public domain) license. Their previous project, the Open Goldberg Variations (2012), has shown its cultural significance by greatly enhancing the Wikipedia.org article on J.S. Bach's work, and by making great progress in supplying musical scores that are accessible to the visually impaired and the blind. The recording has also received very positive early reviews by music critics. Over 900 fans of J.S. Bach financed this project on Kickstarter.com, where a total of $44,083 was raised.

59 comments

  1. ZX Spectrum by kooky45 · · Score: 1

    Which one was the Sabre Wulf theme based on?

    1. Re:ZX Spectrum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first one, I think: No. 1 in C major.

  2. Unfortunately, it's still on piano by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

    Unfortunately, this recording is on piano rather than one of Bach's preferred instruments. Hint: look at the title of the piece. Or, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

    1. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, looking at the title of the piece doesn't help me, since a "clavier" is any keyboard instrument (including the piano). In German, "Klavier" means only the piano.

    2. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think you might project some intentions here. Bach used a clavichord most of the time but that does not automatically mean that he liked it the most. The clavichord was practical enough to be used at a writing table where one might also transcribe the music. IIRC that use of the instrument is pretty much proven for his work on the cantatas.
      A modern day equivalent would be the use of an E-piano instead of let's say a Boesendorfer Model 290 while composing and arranging: the grand piano might be great for a concert hall but certainly not for your average bedroom. (And also I would not recommend putting a metal case laptop on top of it on a regular basis :-)

    3. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by afidel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I had the exact same thought when I went to the site. I went to Bach's childhood home and they have a number of his harpsichords including at least two in playable condition and I was lucky enough to be there on a day when they were actually playing one of them! It's a very different sound from a modern piano, though through stylized play the artist on this recording has made a modern piano sound as close as I've heard to the actual instrument that the piece was written for.

      --
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    4. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by rDouglass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Instruments have developed since Bach's time. It's nice to play on period instruments, but it's also nice to play on modern instruments. The equivalent of the Bösendorfer 280 on which this recording was made never existed in Bach's lifetime. Would he have liked it? Who knows, but I like it!

    5. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's incredible. The German word is Cembalo, according to Wikipedia. I'm pretty sure the title refers to and old kind of piano -- not to a modern piano (as noted known by the word Klavier).

      So, Germans think the artwork is about a piano, while every single other person on Earth probably understands it as a work for a contemporary instrument.

      BTW, most languages know by cymbal that what German calls Becken.

      Can you believe it?

    6. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had this too: bwv 1065 played on piano sounds just inferior.

    7. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only because something is newer, it isn't better. Thats true for musical instruments, women, programming languages, and init systems. And now congratulate me for converting this into an anti-systemd flame without you noticing.

    8. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 5, Informative

      Indeed. You have to look at the history of music and know that the first pianos were made before the book was published. (Bartolomeo Cristofori's pianos appeared at the turn of the century, c 1700; book 1 was published in 1722.) Bach didn't back pianos until later on (Wikipedia says 1747, and I have no reason to doubt that). But it is widely held that The Well-Tempered Clavier was pivotal to the popularisation of the piano, even though it would originally have been performed mostly on harpsichord (due to the quietness of the clavichord).

      Personally, I would have preferred a period-instrument version, with perhaps the piano version as a stretch goal, but there's nothing all that inappropriate in using a piano, all told.

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    9. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      A harpsichord is quite different than a piano. A piano (pianoforte) operates by the action of key-driven hammers striking the strings. A harpsichord operates by having the keys drive a plucking mechanism instead, like picking a guitar. It makes for a very different tonal quality.

      The more important issue here, however is that this is the well-tempered Clavier. Or, more accurately, the even-tempered Clavier. Earlier instruments were tuned more precisely to the key that they would be played in. Bach was showing off a new technology where instead of precise tuning, the tuning was warped just enough that you could play in any key without retuning.

      So a modern piano would actually be more faithful to the sound Bach was intending than an authentic Bach-era instrument that wasn't even-tempered.

    10. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by digsbo · · Score: 1

      Only because something is newer, it isn't better.

      You've obviously never been to a concert of "period" instruments. Most of them sound like shit, and Bach would have been overjoyed to have a modern piano.

    11. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by rivaldufus · · Score: 2

      I'd probably argue that the sonatas (and other keyboard works) of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven really popularized the fortepiano. Mendelssohn had to help revive Bach from obscurity - so J.S. wasn't that popular. Of course, the mainstream composers knew J.S. Bach, but C.P.E. kind of eclipsed his own father for a while... partially due to be a bridge to the classical style away from Baroque. The WTC was very successful in pushing well temperament tuning, for sure - so I suppose that could be part of its enduring legacy....

      It's really hard to say, at any rate. People were, to a degree, using some music on both... Beethoven suggested that the Pathetique sonata could be played on either.

      I agree with you on the period instrument goal. Having played on harpsichords, clavichords, and modern pianos, I can't help but feel that piano removes some of the subtlety you get on a good harpsichord or especially on a clavichord. The touch is so different and even the fingering was quite different from modern keyboard playing. If J.S. wrote the WTC with a fortepiano in mind, he would have written quite a bit of it differently.

      I suppose a piano version is certainly better than no version, though.

    12. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by rivaldufus · · Score: 1

      It's all about tuning. Well temperament existed in his time, of course. I have a feeling he'd find modern equal temperament startling - since most intervals are impure. And the touch is so different, I'll always argue he would have written it differently for fortepiano, let alone our modern piano. From what I've seen of baroque fingering on keyboard music, that alone would produce a different sound from our modern system.

      This will be a good use for the first time machine.

    13. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > Bach would have been overjoyed to have a modern piano.

      I think Bach would have been overjoyed to have a Minimoog!

    14. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by gnasher719 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, this recording is on piano rather than one of Bach's preferred instruments. Hint: look at the title of the piece. Or, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]

      What makes you think that Bach wouldn't have preferred a modern piano to what was available to him? He specifically wrote this music, named "the well-tempered clavier", when he had for the first time in his life a chance to actually play a well-tempered instrument and not one that only sounded fine in a small number of keys.

      He was quite happy with this newfangled invention, and I'm sure he would have been even happier with a better instrument.

      BTW. Bach was German. And the German word for "piano" is "Klavier".

    15. Re: Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of them sound like shit?
      You're obviously a cloth-eared idiot.

    16. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 2

      What is starting to bug me about this project is that the Kickstarter sold it as about making the music of Bach free, and the soloist responsible was given secondary importance, but when you go to download the music from the artist's page, the download page claims it was 'er fans wot dun it. Sure, clearly part of the deal for her was the opportunity to make more of a name for herself in a space where there are very few household names, but she's claiming that the backers and downloaders who came thanks to the "open" project are "her fans", selling herself in the name of people who are perhaps indifferent to her.

      But that's also part of the "whither piano" question -- this was a vehicle for her to show her mastery, and she's a pianist, and the grand piano gives her much more opportunity to put her individual stamp on the piece than she would have had with a harpsichord. Again, it's about her. (Although it is a fantastic recording, and one I will no doubt listen to a lot.)

      She might yet get stung by unexpected contractual glitches in the international market though -- it has happened before that recording artists have released material for free, only for collections agencies in certain countries to declare that their contract with the artist (pre-dating the release) gives them exclusive rights to collect royalties on the artist's recordings, making the free release a breach of contract. Messy.

      --
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    17. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by dfghjk · · Score: 0

      But most likely NOT overjoyed to have a modern organ and he would take exception to the generalization that most "period" instruments "sound like shit".

      JS Bach was first and foremost and organist, not a composer, and he was a master at voicing the world's great organs.

      Basically, this comment is equivalent to saying that Antonio Stradivari would be overjoyed by today's violins because "period" violins sound like shit. Bach was revered as a musician and technician and was contracted to maintain the world's finest keyboard instruments.

    18. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by gymell · · Score: 1

      You obviously don't know anything about early keyboard instruments or the physics behind temperament. Peforming this on a modern piano, which is *equal* tempered, defeats the whole purpose of the piece, which is intended for a *well* tempered instrument. If you think period instruments sound like shit, then it's likely your ears that are out of tune, dulled by lack of exposure to anything beyond equal temperament.

    19. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by tibit · · Score: 1

      You can tune the piano for any temperament you wish.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    20. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by homm2 · · Score: 2

      I like what Glenn Gould had to say about this. Late in his life, Bach reviewed a "Silbermann" piano, which may not have shared much in common with a modern grand piano, but was still an evolutionary step in that direction. In the end, the instrument met Bach's complete approval. Gould makes a number of other really good points.

    21. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd rather hear Vivaldi on a violin than a viol. Mind you, both are often played badly. Pianos are sterile.

    22. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by JanneM · · Score: 1

      (And also I would not recommend putting a metal case laptop on top of it on a regular basis :-)

      As a non-musician I'm curious: what is the problem of putting a metal case laptop on top of a piano? Scratches, or something more interesting happens?

      --
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    23. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by jonadab · · Score: 1

      The more you study Bach's work, the more you get the impression that he didn't really prefer one instrument over another. The man routinely took pieces that had been originally written for one instrument and reworked them for another. He made violin pieces work on the harpsichord, harpsichord pieces on the pipe organ, organ pieces on the violin, whatever. He really seems to have been more interested in the music itself than in the specific acoustic properties of any particular instrument.

      Besides that, of all the works Bach wrote, the WTC specifically is probably the best suited for pianoforte. Virtually every other keyboard instrument available in Bach's time was tuned to a just intonation in almost every case, making them unsuitable to play this particular piece. A justly intoned harpsichord (or a set of justly intoned violins for that matter) would be fine for BWV1079 or 1080, but it clearly wouldn't work at all for WTC.

      --
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    24. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > I went to Bach's childhood home and they have a number of his harpsichords

      Yes, but those harpsichords were probably all justly intoned for a particular key (not necessarily all for the /same/ particular key, mind you). Well tempered instruments were a relatively new thing in Bach's time, and the instrument most widely associated with well temperament (and later perfectly equal temperament) is the pianoforte.

      Most of Bach's works would be better performed on some other instrument -- violin, harpsichord, or in a few cases the pipe organ. The Well-Tempered Clavier is the exception. More than anything else Bach wrote, it really does belong on the piano.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    25. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > And the German word for "piano" is "Klavier".

      I don't know about modern German, but in Bach's time any keyboard instrument would be called a Klavier.

      However, you are certainly correct about the Well-Tempered Clavier being by design particularly suited, more than any of Bach's other music, to newer instruments that were more closely approaching the modern piano than anything that had come before. That's the whole point of the piece, in fact.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    26. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by digsbo · · Score: 2

      Oh my ears are plenty good. As a player of wind instruments and piano I'm well acquainted with the natural tendency for solo wind players to revert to pure "just tuning", which is the natural tuning that comes from octave displacement of the ratios between notes in the harmonic overtone series, as well as the other tunings.

      You can tune a piano or clavier or harpsichord to whatever tuning you want, just by changing string tension. Of course older instruments in some cases lacked full chromatic keys, or even had multiple keys for the same note tuned for different scales in older tunings. But the quality of sound modern instruments produce, and the obvious dynamic range of a piano, are superior.

      Whether a C# is the twelfth root of two higher than a C is irrelevant to instrument quality.

    27. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by BoogieChile · · Score: 1

      To clarify: Scratches on a one hundred and fifty thousand dollar piano is what happens.

    28. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Starting a debate on whether modern or period instruments are better is the musical equivalent of doing an Ask Slashdot: what is the best text editor?

      --
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    29. Re:Unfortunately, it's still on piano by JanneM · · Score: 1

      It's not scratched, it's vintage :)

      --
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    30. Re: Unfortunately, it's still on piano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I noticed :)

  3. Well, open projects are all very good... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...but I was more curious about the "Closed Slashdot Story" project, where a new story, for the first hour or so, gives an "item does not exist" error when you click through to the discussion. Skimping on the maintenance budget, Dice?

    1. Re:Well, open projects are all very good... by rDouglass · · Score: 1

      I noticed that too - and even wrote to feedback@slashdot.org about it. Seems better now!

  4. Can it be used for commercial use? by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
    On the site, I can't find the license and terms of use....can these pieces be used say, on a video for commercial gain?

    If you put this on a video on a monetized YouTube channel, would this be permissible?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Can it be used for commercial use? by rDouglass · · Score: 5, Informative

      The license is included in the download, and it is CC0 - public domain. Use it as you please.

    2. Re:Can it be used for commercial use? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I emailed them and asked whether it was CC0 or CC BY, as listed on the bandcamp page. It turns out that bandcamp doesn't have an option to list your license as CC0, so they chose the least restrictive license, and included the actual license in the download.

      CC0 means go ahead and do *whatever* you want with it.

    3. Re:Can it be used for commercial use? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where is the download link? All I see is "Buy Now", which wants me to provide an email address and will automatically put me on a spam list.

      If this is open and crowdfunded, shouldn't there be a download link?

  5. Sesame Street and Bach by madro · · Score: 1

    OK, so listening to this, I just now realized (30+ years later) that an alphabet tune that has been stuck in my head forever looks like it's based on the Well-Tempered Clavier.

    Fugue No. 2 in C minor, BMV 847 (track 4) vs. start of Alphabet Chat (Found one for the letter L; still funny to me.)

    "A-B-C-D-E C-D-E-F-G H-I-J-K L-M-N-O-P Q-R-S-T-U R-S-T-U-V S-T-U-V W-X-Y-Z and ... A ... B ... C."

  6. Link to musescore home page by guerby · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://musescore.org/ Curiously missing in the article

    1. Re:Link to musescore home page by rDouglass · · Score: 1

      Thanks for correcting the oversight!

    2. Re:Link to musescore home page by Strange+Quark+Star · · Score: 1

      That's the MuseScore hompage; the link to the actual scores is well hidden within the PDF scores from the Bandcamp download. It's https://musescore.com/opengold...

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  7. FLAC bit rate by pjcreath · · Score: 1

    For those who are wondering, the FLAC is 96 kHz, 24-bit. I presume ALAC is the same.

    1. Re:FLAC bit rate by rDouglass · · Score: 1

      yes, isn't it glorious?

  8. Great performance!! by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've listened to only a little so far, but it sounds extremely promising, with the phrasing, tempo, and ornamentation all being superb. Ms. Ishizaka also does an outstanding job of using the dynamic range of the piano in harmony with the music. This is perhaps among the hardest and most subjective elements of interpreting Bach's keyboard work, since, as other commenters here have noted, most of it predates the widespread adoption of the piano, and was written without its greater dynamic range and expressiveness in mind. So far, this is becoming my favorite recording of this work.

    --

    Nonaggression works!
  9. Temperament and copyright by orgelspieler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't see anything on the Kickstarter or description on the website about the temperament of the Bösendorfer on which this was recorded. I hope that they did not use a standard equal-tempered piano. That would be missing out on a great opportunity.

    Also, I noticed the following on the back cover of the CD: "(C) 2015 Navona Records ... Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws." Yet at the top it says that they hope you share the music. What gives?

    1. Re:Temperament and copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Standard jargon to protect you and the vendor.

      Step 1: reserve all rights.

      Step 2: explicitly license everything to the customer

      Step 3: ????*

      Step 4: Profit!

      * I'm sure I've seen this model somewhere else before...

    2. Re:Temperament and copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The pieces are CC0 as is the score. Navona own publication rights in the whole work as a compilation, potentially. I'm fairly sure that even if you wanted to, you can't claim copyright to yoursefl for the artwork / CD leaflet etc.

      There's absolutely nothing to stop you sharing the files / using them as background to a film / using them to help teach harmony and composition ...

    3. Re:Temperament and copyright by alienshore_rick · · Score: 1

      You can use it, but you'd better be aware that Naxos is the owner as far as YouTube's ContentID system is concerned. Use the music in a video and you'll have ads all over it with the money going to Naxos. Not exactly what I'd call open or public domain.

    4. Re:Temperament and copyright by alienshore_rick · · Score: 1

      Okay, my apologies for the snark, but this isn't exactly the completely open and "use it for anything you'd like and it's okay!" deal that it seems to be.

    5. Re:Temperament and copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I imagine, just like anything else the music can be dual licensed. There will be a CC0 download on Bandcamp (on the 24th, I believe, unless it got moved up -- I haven't RTFAed). Whether or not the CD is CC0, I don't know. It is interesting that the copyright has been assigned to Navona Records. I certainly hope that all the i's are dotted and t's crossed for the licensing, or else it would be very disappointing. I can't really complain since I was not part of the Kickstarter, but I could imagine people being upset if the terms were changed.

    6. Re:Temperament and copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Replying to my own AC post :-P The Bandcamp download is indeed available and is *not* CC0. It is "Attribution 3.0 Unported".

      http://music.kimiko-piano.com/album/bach-well-tempered-clavier-book-1

      Click on the "some rights reserved" link near the bottom.

    7. Re:Temperament and copyright by Blekstar_ru · · Score: 1

      " " http://www.mirstrim.ru/

  10. Torrent? by steveha · · Score: 1

    I would like to download the music and listen to it. But while I'm not ready to send them any money yet, neither would I like to hit their servers and cost them bandwidth.

    So I'd like to torrent this. I did search and haven't found a torrent yet.

    Could someone who has already downloaded it please put up a torrent?

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  11. Online streaming by steveha · · Score: 1

    I just checked, and Rhapsody has this music available for streaming. I'm a Rhapsody customer and I'm listening to this recording right now.

    I presume that Spotify and Google Play probably have this by now also. It's public domain so they have no reason not to just add it. (But I haven't checked to confirm.)

    --
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