> So while J.S. Bach didn't invent well-tempered tuning, the 48 was his major, if not defining contribution to making it popular, as the 48 was pretty much The Music Theory Bible for generations of composers.
Could someone point me to an explanation for this? How does a newbie such as myself discover the compositional techniques hidden in these?
Primarily, the WTC is known for its pristine use of counterpoint, or multiple independent voices working together to create harmony. This is mainly seen in the fugues, though the preludes have plenty of it, too.
In addition, Bach used this work to teach his students musical composition, and many of the pieces exemplify certain compositional techniques. For example, take a look at prelude #1. The entire piece is based on moving between chords by changing a single note, effectively demonstrating voice leading and harmony.
Unfortunately, the WTC was not particularly well known during Bach's time or in the century after. If I'm remembering my music history correctly, it was barely even published during his lifetime. Eventually, it was rediscovered by the Romantic composers and has been famous ever since.
I do not believe Bach actually had any hand in popularizing equal (or well) temperament. This might just be one of those legends attributed to the great composer. (We covered this in music history class when I was at university, but sadly, I don't remember the details.)
> The entire piece is based on moving between chords by changing a single note
This statement ceases to be correct for very first chord change of the piece, which goes from C to Dm7. In fact, it's an incorrect description of the piece in general.
OK, sorry, I haven't listened to it in a while. Make that "a few notes". Or just boil it down to "voice leading between chords". The point is the same: it's written with a very particular constraint in mind.
Thank you. I'll read it, of course, but later tonight. What I had in mind was something more specific to the WTC pieces. I've heard them, and I like them. But I want to learn a greater degree of appreciation for each of the pieces. Have you come across something that would help?
Almost any traditional music theory course or textbook will get you started. But the geek-standard for non-musicians is probably Hofstadter's Godel-Escher-Bach, which explains some of the clever things Bach did.
Bach was exceptionally good at writing parallel lines of music while keeping them separate and individually interesting.
The technical name for this is counterpoint. While counterpoint never quite died out - it's still used in pop and film scores - no one else has ever written counterpoint quite as dense and inventive.
And Bach didn't just write it, he improvised it, with six or even eight lines at a time.
WTC is an example of writing in different keys - identical note scales that start on different root notes.
Before modern tunings keyboards were tuned to a specific key. The other possible keys were always more or less out of tune.
With modern tunings the sourness was smoothed out. None of the keys are exactly in tune, but they're all similarly good-enough.
Bach's tuning probably wasn't quite the same as a modern tuning. But it was close enough to allow him to write a book of pieces that worked through all the keys on a single instrument without retuning - which was a novelty for the time.
WTC is also a kind of pattern book of contrapuntal and compositional techniques. So it made a huge impression - and still does.
If you're not a musician I wouldn't get too distracted by the theory. It helps to know what a fugue is and maybe a little about form, but the music is very good at speaking for itself as a self-contained experience without insisting that you understand how it was put together.
I have read Godel-Escher-Bach, and that's how I discovered Bach's music. A few years later, I came across BBC's Discovering Music series, and one presenter gave a very good talk on the Goldberg Variations. He had a player with him to play whatever sections the presenter asked for.
When I looked for it now, they seem to have something entirely different in its place [1]. Incidentally, they also have a talk on Bach's Preludes and Fugues [2]. I don't know if these are as good as the one I heard years ago. I'll find out tonight.
I have read a very little bit from music theory textbooks. I don't play an instrument, so the books quickly became tedious for me.
You've already gotten some great sources linked about the WTC in particular, and most of them are correct that it'd take months to years of experience with counterpoint (even assuming you've already composed here and there) to really begin appreciating how fluid Bach's counterpoint is. However, for completeness, I wanted to link some good basic introductions to species counterpoint[1][2][3].
I thought it should also be noted: species counterpoint was being formalized just around Bach's time by Johann Fux[4], and modern clarifications and extensions to Baroque formal species counterpoint are largely derived from reverse-inferring rules out of Bach's masterful use of counterpoint and his inventive ways of twisting the rules (often to make his own consistent contrapuntal language). In this sense, WTC is an absolute masterclass of the rules that formed the core of the defining era of European music, which is why it's so famous.
I think the WTC can be appreciated even if you don't know the mechanics of counterpoint. I finally found the wonder in the WTC when I was doing an assignment that required us track the themes in one of the fugues. Mine was Book 1, Fugue 4. Having never listened to any of the pieces with the score in hand, it was enlightening to find not only the specific instances, but also the rhythms, the contours, and the sub-motifs from each theme seemingly in every nook and cranny of the piece. Nor were the themes constrained in any way: they morphed into one another, played against one another, and fundamentally changed the feel of the piece as they made their entrances. It felt like the musical material was liquid. The effect was emotional and profound, but it wasn't something that could be put into words; this was music talking.
I took away a lifelong lesson from this 1 hour listening session, and all it required was the score and my attention. Counterpoint is a rhetorical tool, and I think it can be fundamentally understood and appreciated even without performing the full dissection.
I also recommend Rachmaninoff's Etude-Tableau Op. 39 No. 4 in B Minor for counterpoint appreciation. That piece never fails to blow my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLotW5AKjg
Could someone point me to an explanation for this? How does a newbie such as myself discover the compositional techniques hidden in these?