In July of 1992, a graduate student in piano and musicology in the quaint college town of Lawrence, Kansas, USA, experienced a revelation in which Bach's secret mathematical formulae were revealed to him.
Working fervently with his tools of the trade—a metronome, calculator, and piano—and driven for two days in white heat without sleep by an inexorable cosmic force, this renegade theorist achieved something unprecedented in music history. He uncovered some of Bach’s most cryptic compositional secrets, which allowed him to “crack the Bach tempo code” and prove the tempos and architectural designs Bach intended for virtually all his works! This will soon culminate in his destined to be a cult-classic 350-page treatise, “Breaking the Bach Tempo Code”!
Bach Scholar's original, trailblazing theory, founded upon an innovative scientific method employing illuminating color-coded spreadsheets, breaks new ground in Bach scholarship and performance. Among his profound and surprising discoveries are:
There exist universally or theoretically “ideal”
tempos that are neither composer nor style specific, which can be derived simply by setting up
a grid or table and using elementary arithmetic. Analysis of Bach’s works shows that
Bach planned his music with these unique and special tempos in mind.
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Based on explicit information given by Bach’s most
famous student and disciple, Johann Philip Kirnberger, Bach thought in terms of absolutes,
rather than ranges, when planning his tempos. Kirnberger emphasizes that each style has
a “definite” tempo, indicating that Bach associated just one tempo with each
style. Kirnberger’s descriptions suggest that the “definite” tempos and
their intrinsic relationships were not controllable by anyone, even Bach, but rather
were governed by a natural order and natural laws beyond human control.
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Analysis shows Bach often planned whole-number or integer
durations like two, three, or four minutes and he regularly planned proportional
“duration ratios” among movements, the main ratios being 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, and their
inverses of 2:1 and 3:2. Bach achieved integer durations and duration ratios by planning
the style, meter, and tempos first, and then calculating how
many measures to aim for when finally putting pen to paper. This is a very easy process,
requiring nothing more than elementary arithmetic.
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Analysis shows that even among movements without integer
durations, Bach nevertheless regularly planned 1:1, 1:2, 2:1, 2:3, or 3:2 duration ratios,
which also requires nothing more than elementary arithmetic. Planning 1:1, 1:2, or 2:3
duration ratios is analogous to an architect planning two rooms to be equal in size,
one room twice as large as another, or one room one-half larger than another. In essence,
Bach was something of a “musical architect” who wished to give large-scale
coherence (by means of unifying durations) to works as short as preludes and fugues
to multi-movement cycles as long as the 15 Inventions or the 24-movement B-minor Mass.
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Detailed temporal analysis of the complete B-minor Mass
unequivocally confirms the above statements and hypotheses, which is further corroborated
by Christoph Wolff’s assertion that Bach was not merely an organist,
Capellmeister, or even a composer, but more importantly, a “musical
scientist” who produced works of “musical science.” Discovery of
Bach’s large-scale architectural plans for both halves of the B-minor Mass
ultimately proves Bach Scholar’s theory and tempos, since such order within such
minuscule margins of error cannot be the result of coincidence. In short, Bach
Scholar’s scientific method is one of assuming some
initial hypotheses or axioms, testing and
discovering they are indeed true throughout the entire
B-minor Mass, confirming the validity of the hypotheses,
and thus, proving Bach’s tempos.
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Analysis suggests about 70% of the time performers choose
reasonable tempos for Bach’s works that seem to be within about a 5% range from
Bach’s ideal. Seen in this light, Bach Scholar’s theory is not radical
or controversial by any means, since it is not a revisionist approach of scolding or
castigating performers for playing “everything too fast” or “everything
too slow.” Despite this good news, however, there does exist a small percentage of
works that are, for unexplainable reasons, misinterpreted by the majority of performers.
Among works on this list are the Credo and Agnus dei from the B-minor
Mass, which are regularly performed at least 30 beats per minute too fast and slow,
respectively. In fact, the Agnus dei is often performed at half
speed, making it the most misinterpreted movement
in all of Bach's works. Also on this list is the immensely popular Prelude and Fugue in
E-flat Major for organ (“St. Anne”), whose time signatures are routinely ignored by organists, which result
in tempos far off from those Bach intended.
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The good news is that Bach Scholar’s research and writing style is easy to understand and accessible to everyone—teachers, students, and amateurs alike—but at the same time does not insult the intelligence of the most erudite of scholars. Bach Scholar™ has something for everyone and, as all readers will quickly discover, serves as the world-wide web’s most trusted and time-tested resource for those who yearn to finally solve the elusive problem of tempo in Bach’s music!
