source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 12:41:44 -0800 Subject: British microtonal broadcast From: John Chalmers In re British broadcast of microtonal music reported in my earlier post, here is some follow-up from rec.music.early. David Griffel Christopher Stembridge (specialist in early organ and other keyboard repertoire, runs an annual summer school in Italy) broadcast on radio 3 a recital of early kboard music on a reconstruction of the "arcicembalo" (I think), a Renaissance italian harpsichord with much more than 12 keys/octave. See New Grove et al for more on the arcicembalo. I don't know if Stembridge has recorded this stuff. I thought (FWIW) that it sounded very bland: all the intervals were just, even in remote keys. I missed the extra flavour you get with the out-of-tune intervals on normal keyboard instruments. David Griffel Todd McComb mccomb@medieval.org I don't think you can really characterize the Neapolitan chromatic repertory as "totally lacking in temperment" ... and, of course, the whole point is that the compositions *were* written with split accidentals in mind. Anyway, seriously, what do you think of Alan Curtis' recording (Nuova Era 7177)? Lacking in contrasts? Just curious. I like it, but not overwhelmingly so. Todd McComb mccomb@medieval.org a440a@aol.com (A440A) I have had the same experience as David. Total lack of tempering sounds dull in a hurry, without the specific composition properly written to utilize the effect. Even then, these 20th century ears soon begin looking for a little contrast. The equal temperament of today offers little more contrast than the meantone tunings of yesteryear. This is logical, as all like intervals are tempered alike. The key of D has as much dissonance/consonance as the key of G# If you really want to hear tonal contrast in the keyboard literature, it can be found in the keyboard tunings of the 18th century. The music written for it came from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,( and some temperament savvy people say, Chopin.) There are no concrete dates for temperament changes, but some fairly well supported guidelines. We know when many of the temperaments were published, and how many of them were received. These composers created in the age of Werckmeister, Prinz, Neidhardt, and Young. We know how these theorists described tuning practises of the day, and today, we can once again restore the key coloration that the Well-Temperaments were all loosely based on. The art of modulation was built on changes in dissonance found among the various keys. This was not a helter-skelter approach of some keys good, some bad, but rather, a process that rendered the most used keys more purely tuned. Broad implications here for modulatory steps. Since increasing the number of accidentals in the key sig. will cause an increase in the dissonance of the root tonic third, the signature will often give a hint of what the mood of the key may be. (the 3rd has a very strong affect on the tonal character of the triad, changes in the amount of tempering in the third changes the tonal nature of the key signature). In any of the major temperaments of the 18th Century, and much of the early 19th, Cmaj has a very different tonal character than C#maj, and Ebmin is totally different from both. More to be said on this later. Ed Foote Precision Piano Works Nashville, Tenn. --John Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 7 Jan 1997 22:24 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA16606; Tue, 7 Jan 1997 22:27:26 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA16601 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id NAA12926; Tue, 7 Jan 1997 13:26:55 -0800 Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 13:26:55 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu