Johann Sebastian Bach probably wrote some of the well tempered clavier during his month in prison. He snubbed a royal who didn’t want him to go work somewhere else.
Some of the well tempered clavier was thus written in his head in likely miserable conditions. If you’ve never tried writing a fugue, under the best conditions it’s sort of like being asked to thread a needle seven different ways while blindfolded and standing on your head.
The well tempered clavier was written before there were pianos. Purists might play it on a harpsichord or clavichord. Glenn Gould plays it like an alien who was actually Bach on another planet.
The 48 pieces come in two book volumes, I’d say 6 eight track cassettes, 4 CDs, 8 LPs and just a blip on Itunes. Each piece has a prelude and fugue demonstrating, yes indeed, a well tempered keyboard. If you start on a C and do it in major and minor and climb up the scale by half notes till B (then back to C again), all those guys sound in tune. It’s math, it’s art, it’s engineering. It’s like that scene where the Von Trapp children sing about deer and sewing. Threading a needle.
When the world is falling apart, I usually rest in the well tempered clavier. Some call it the Old Testament of music. Like “in the beginning” there was Bach. But in the same way the well tempered circle has no beginning nor end, there was music encircling our ancestors. Maybe we sang before we grunted coarse words.
Bach just happens to tap into my own primordial goo, which seems to be located in the liminal electrical space between my atrium and ventricle and between my motor cortex and my fingers. If you notice I’m well tempered on any given day, thank Bach.
Prison Bach especially. The guy who threw him in prison was a monstrously rich megalomaniac-JSB actually got off easy compared to some other employees who didn’t wear the proverbial red hat for the Duke of Haters. It’s a good reminder that mean people in power is just a part of the human condition. They might win a little sometimes but in the sense that not a single soul can hold back the long arc of beauty and justice, it’s a hollow victory. A deep well tempers grief with compassionate waters. A well that welcomes all. Please notice who usually gathers at the wells of the world, to tend to the thirst of their children and their community.
Please notice the helpers.
https://youtu.be/HZ_muo3BzI8?si=FNS-CCA2f2LALsYE
