This recording was made in August, a hot month, requiring the air conditioning to be turned off to avoid noise, which made tuning difficult due to temperature changes.
Composition History
The "London Manuscript," one of the most important surviving copies of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book II, was written by Bach himself and his second wife, Anna Magdalena.
Compositional Technique
The use of time signatures in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book II reflects a breakdown of the traditional system, where time signatures alone could no longer determine tempo.
Instruments
The instrument used is a harpsichord made by Joel Katzman in Amsterdam in 2001, modeled after a 1638 J. Ruckers Flemish harpsichord.
Compositional Technique
The original title of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" is a mistranslation; the original meaning is "skillfully tuned," not "equal temperament."
Interpretation
The tuning system used is a 1/6 Pythagorean comma split unequal temperament, based on a proposal by B. Lehman in 2004, which is one of the tunings speculated to be "Bach temperament."
Composition History
Another significant manuscript of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book II was copied in 1744 under Bach's supervision by his distinguished pupil and son-in-law, Johann Christoph Altnikol.
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