The Well-Tempered Clavier - Later Significance and Influence

Later Significance and Influence

Although the Well-Tempered Clavier was not the first pantonal (using all keys) composition, it was by far the most influential. The very nature of the piece (as implied by its title page) established a tuning requirement for harmonies which were to become the basis for all Western music developed through the early 20th century. The Well-Tempered Clavier does not include very remote modulations, but instead demonstrates the ability of a single instrument in tempered tuning to play in all 24 keys without having to be tuned to new fundamentals. Beethoven, who made remote modulations central to his music, was heavily influenced by the Well-Tempered Clavier, since performing it in concerts in his youth was part of his star attraction and reputation. Further reaching modulations to remote harmonic regions were mostly associated with later Romantic and post-Romantic music, ultimately leading to the functional extension in jazz harmony. The atonal system of the 20th century, although still taking the 12-tone chromatic scale (that Bach used) as a foundation, effectively did away with musical keys altogether.

In addition to its use of all keys, the Well-Tempered Clavier was unusual in the very wide range of techniques and modes of expression used by Bach in the fugues. No other composer had produced such vividly characterised and compelling pieces in the fugal form, which was often regarded as a theoretical exercise. Many later composers studied Bach's work in an effort to improve their own fugal writing: Verdi even found it useful for his last work, Falstaff.

The first complete recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier was made by Edwin Fischer between 1933 and 1936. Other notable recordings have been made by Wanda Landowska, Rosalyn Tureck, Glenn Gould, Friedrich Gulda, Gustav Leonhardt, Sviatoslav Richter, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Roger Woodward, Angela Hewitt and András Schiff.