source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 18:31:15 -0700 Subject: Re: Pablo Casals and "Expressive Intonation" From: Johnny Reinhard Catalan cellist Pablo Casals said in 1955 that he employed "expressive intonation" rather than tempered intonation. Though he stated that he didn't think there was anything of value in composing with quartertones, thirdtones or tenthtones, he was known traditionally for his "expressive intonation." This past Christmas I played his C minor and D minor Bach Cello Preludes and analyzed them successfully according to Werckmeister III tuning, apparently intuitively. Casals described his ideas thusly: "Intonation, as it is conceived today, has such sensitiveness and subtlety that the intonation of note must affect the listener quite apart from any stimulating accent. The necessity of observing it is understood and observed by all good instrumentalists. In our day, the public would not accept a good soloist if he did not play in tune. Singers are taught "tempered" intonation, but I have noticed that the most gifted and the most artistic ones realise the importance and the subtelety of perfect intonation. The principle I am speaking of is of varied character in its application to string instruments. I make an exception for double-stopped playing: in this case one must compromise between expressive intonation and the "tempered" one. "I can give a demonstration which would astonish many people: for example I can prove with my system that there is a greater distance between a Db and a C# than there is in a semitone like C-Db or C#-D natural. "It is a pity that such an essential part of performance as this real intonation should be, is still so neglected by some teachers. The other day when I was giving a young pupil his first lesson, I asked him how he had been taught; he said he had been taught intonation from the tempered piano. So you see what work he will have to do to correct this!" -- Pablo Casals The translater had one slant on the above and a footnote references another. I prefer to take Casals at his word. That is: that tempered intonation is mathematically exact 12-tone equal temperament but it is by its very nature unnatural. So for expressive imperitives, in order to draw the truest character out of music, notes are distorted from their mathematical ideal. The Db is sometimes stretched so low for a dark shape of interval, while a C# is striving up so high to lead to the next,that their abstract disctance can be measured as greater than the conventional 12ET semitone. (This of course assumes that C# is higher than Db as in the Pythagorean/12ET theory of pitch ordering.) Johny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music - MicroMay '97 (May 16, 21-23) 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@idt.net http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM/ Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 5 May 1997 04:47 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04626; Mon, 5 May 1997 04:47:10 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04592 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id TAA18692; Sun, 4 May 1997 19:45:29 -0700 Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 19:45:29 -0700 Message-Id: <199705050242.TAA08154@dnai.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu