Slashdot Mirror
"Open Well-Tempered Clavier" Project Complete; Score and Recording Online
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.
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.
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.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The license is included in the download, and it is CC0 - public domain. Use it as you please.
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!
http://musescore.org/ Curiously missing in the article
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.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
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!
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?