source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 24 Sep 1995 19:29:10 +0000 Subject: Re: FWD: Bach's Tuning From: Aleksander Frosztega >>It is dangerous to cite Kirnberger as a paradigm of J.S. Bach's >>compositional practice; it is even more dangerous to cite Kirnberger's >>thoughts on temperament as being those of J.S. Bach's. >And it is yet _more_ dangerous to take Marpurg's spin on Kirnberger's >statements as being those of Bach. See below. If you read the above again carefully, I never said that Kirnberger quoted any statements by Bach. >> Kirnberger's temperaments >>(there are 5 altogether) were attempts to reconcile just intonation >>with free modulation. >Er--isn't this what _all_ temperaments are? Yes and no: Although Circular Temperaments fit the above criteria, all Multi-linears and most Linears, by their very nature, don't. (e.g., mean tone limits modulation to keys utilizing no more than three sharps or two flats...free modulation [through the the peripheral keys] doesn't exist in mean tone.) [snip] [quote by Mr. Hahn] :Several times Kirnberger himself told me and others how the famous J.S. :Bach (during the time of the former's musical instruction under the :latter) made over to him the tuning of his keyboard, and how that master :expressly desired him to make all major thirds sharp. In a tuning with :all major thirds sharp, no pure major third can occur, but as soon as no :pure major thirds are found, so too no major third can be found [which :is] a comma (81/80) sharp. J.S. Bach, whose hearing was not impaired by :bad arithmetic, must have heard that a major third a comma sharp is a :disgusting interval. Why else did he entitle his collection of preludes :and fugues in all twenty-four keys the Art of Temperament? [unquote] >The problem with this is that Marpurg is simply wrong. A temperament >with all major thirds sharper than pure (which is _all_ that we really >know about Bach's tuning from evidence like this) is by no means >required to have all fifths flat; that is a much, much stricter >requirement. [snip] Flat fifths were never mentioned in Rasch's quote. But you are correct in stating that Marpurg is wrong; What Marpurg probably meant to say was that if all the major thids where to be made wide, a major third, wide by a syntonic comma, was not possible. I suspect that Marpurg wrote the above just to perturb Kirnberger. (The whole quote refers to Marpurg's ridicule of Kirnberger II and Kirnberger's temperament theory in general.) >If you know of any documents in which Kirnberger himself, not filtered >through his rhetorical adversary Marpurg, admits that Bach tuned all >fifths flat, please cite it. Kinberger himself, for all the polemics with Marpurg, remains silent on the disposition of J.S. Bach's temperament. However, knowing Kirnberger, he would have LEPT at the chance to publically humiliate Marpurg, were Marpurg's original statement about J.S. Bach's temperament false (this would follow the pattern of their famous vituperations). He didn't. It is inconceivable that Kirnberger was unaware of the passage in question. That is why we can probably trust that the quote represents correct information. This is also the reason that you should not dismiss evidence in Marpurg so quickly... Aleksander Frosztega ------------------------------------------------------- Aleksander Frosztega "Odi summusos; proinde aperte University of Utrecht dice quid sit quod times." The Netherlands