Equal temperament is something almost every musician takes for granted. We learn that 12 notes or 12 half-steps make an octave, and an octave is a pure interval—it is as consonant as any interval can be. Sure, musicians think about pitches—playing in pitch, having perfect pitch, and whether the A should be tuned to 440 or 442. And all orchestral instrumentalists know how to tune their instruments. But how often does a musician question if the major third between C and E is different from the major third between E-flat and G? Quite frankly, I never have—and I will challenge any musician who is not a harpsichordist to say that they have pondered that question. But Lionel Party does—every day, perhaps even a few times a day.

Lionel Party presenting the Schuman Scholar lecture. (Photo by Ira Rosenblum)

Born in Santiago, Chile to a textile technician and a pianist, Mr. Party spent his childhood with music all around him—both in the household and outside. Recalling his first impression of harpsichord music, he vividly describes listening to the radio in the afternoon, with his parents, at the age of 8: “Then prrrrum, a C-minor chord came. And my father said ‘that’s a harpsichord.’ And right after that came the C-sharp major prelude [by Bach] of the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. And I had never heard that piece. It was Wanda Landowska playing on that recording. That piece is awesome!”

Intrigued at a young age, Mr. Party decided to play the instrument. However, it was not to be for another 11 years that he could begin harpsichord lessons—since, to this day, there still does not exist a harpsichord department in any Chilean school. In the meantime, he became an accomplished pianist, building a repertoire that included every Bach partita, English suite, French suite, two-part and three-part invention; every Mozart piano sonata; 26 of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas; every Chopin etude, prelude, scherzo, three of the four ballades; Bartók Mikrokosmos; Debussy Images Books I and II, Estampes I and II, many of the preludes and études; and much much more—all before the age of 21. Mr. Party received his first harpsichord lesson at the age of 19, when a visiting German harpsichordist brought a Pleyel harpsichord to the Goethe Institute in Santiago. Two years later, he was accepted as both a harpsichord major and a piano major into the Musikhochschule in Munich. After returning to Chile for a few more years, Mr. Party went to Juilliard on a Fulbright scholarship to study with Albert Fuller. One Master of Music and a doctorate later, Mr. Party began teaching at Juilliard, where he continues to this day.

With two harpsichords in his studio and two at home, Mr. Party is a compulsive tuner. Temperament has been an enigma since the beginning of music making. If one were to tune perfect, non-beating fifths, then, at the end of the circle of fifths, the octaves would be dissonant. This means that somewhere along the line, some intervals have to be shortened and some lengthened—or every interval can be shortened by a fraction, a system that we now use, and call equal temperament. But Mr. Party does not tune his instruments this way; he prefers a French method in which the major thirds in the white major keys (such as C to E, and D to F-sharp) are slightly smaller than the thirds in the black major keys (such as C-sharp to E-sharp, and F-sharp to A-sharp), so that, when one plays the C-major Prelude of the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach, it sounds clean and warm, rather than acerbic (as if one were to play in C-sharp major). Similarly, the C-sharp major Prelude—which always reminds me of the tingly music that accompanies the electric parade at Disneyland—sounds jarring and rasping in its intended key. This was amply demonstrated in the first lecture that Mr. Party gave on January 16 in Paul Hall as the William Schuman Scholar for this academic year. Every first-year music theory student listened intently as he performed these and other pieces from The Well-Tempered Clavier, to show the effect of tuning in creating unique characters for each prelude and fugue.

On February 13 at 11 a.m. in Paul Hall, Mr. Party will give another lecture on the rhythmic freedom in the music of Bach and of those who influenced him. If this is anything like the last one, it will be exciting and full of musical nuances.

Tiffany Kuo, a publicist in the Communications Office, holds a master’s degree in piano from Juilliard.