Equal temperament is not order upon disorder. It is disorder upon order. What both sides don't get is that both approaches are valid. This noted, Werkmeister's temperament schemes and others of his era created Well-Temperaments not Equal Temperaments. Werkmeister, Kirnberger and Young's Well-Tempered tunings preserved the "color of the keys" which is a very cool thing to know about!
Elster does not "fail" he is merely demonstrating how Bach's music sounds on a "correctly" tuned (non-equally tempered) piano. This is the paradox: Bach's magnificent music, created by distorting and perverting the true system of harmony.
The paradox is that without Werckmeister's tuning scheme, Bach would never have written the Well Tempered Clavier. I think that he was trying to find a new system that didn't have the compromises that he objected to. In the novel, it states that he re-tuned the piano to equal temperment. Maybe that's in the film, too--I don't remember. So, his experiment was a failure.
@@billwolfer4020 Ah! I get it, I think. I thought he was only demonstrating what WTC would sound like if played on a "proper" or "correct" piano. But was more like "Let's see what will happen," a trial or and "essay". It's likely clearer in the book which I must get around to reading to get the whole story. Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure if I'd call it a paradox exactly but let's say the "tension" is that Bach's achievement means we can't just go back to the old ways, we have to take it into account as well. As in The Leopard, "it must change to stay the same.
@@LolliPop2000 There's not a whole lot more in the novel about the tuning, though. All in all, I see Elster's search for a different way without the compromises he speaks of, as a metaphor for the film's themes of order vs chaos. Compromises are always needed.
