source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:16:25 +0200 Subject: Historical Questions From: Edward Remler I have recently joined this group, and come with a number of questions which some of you experts may be able to help me with. 1) Well Temperament arose in the latter half of the 17th century and Bach attempted to popularize it circa 1716 with his first WTC. Presumably the further a piece’s key is removed from C, the stranger itwill sound to the modern ear, but I have never heard the preludes and fugues played on a well tempered instrument. Does such a recording exist? 2) More generally, do recorded demonstrations of the differences between various systems of tuning exist? I am particularly interested in the efforts composers made in increasing the range of modulation in their compositions in the era when the Just system was pre-eminent. 2) As I understand it, the first clearly stated modern suggestion for ET came from the Belgian scientist Simon Stevin in the early 17th century but was not put into general practice for well over 100 years for a number of reasons. Aside from aesthetic preferences, people did not know how to calculate the twelfth root of 2 (Stevin did, but made a few calculational errors). Furthermore, the understanding of overtones and beats came only in the mid 17th century and some time would have been necessary for tuners to learn how to tune by beats. Any information about the transition to Equal temperament would be of interest to me. Ed Remler Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 18:21 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA17379; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 18:22:09 +0200 Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 18:22:09 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA17323 Received: (qmail 16504 invoked from network); 30 Jun 1997 16:21:49 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 30 Jun 1997 16:21:49 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu