source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 08:28:05 +0200 Subject: Re: Well Temperaments and Meantone From: Daniel Wolf Something has always been rather mysterious to me - in the late Baroque, the use of keys beyond the six good ones in meantone expanded to the point where several composers (and Sebastian Bach was not alone) composed worksventuring into all available keys. We usually assume that some variety ofwell temperament was demanded. And yet, a later generation, that of Mozart and Haydn, would be again satisfied with the key variety offered by meantone. Clearly, this reflects well-known differences in musical style and form, but it also suggests some of the factors in a given style and form that lead to their exhaustion as well as the factors that seem to transcend a given style and are useful to later generations. While Bach'scontrapuntal technique appeared to lead to a cul-de-sac of never-ending modulations and would only be rediscovered in very different contexts (late Beethoven, Schoenberg), Handel's use of key characteristics was extremelyinfluential upon immediately following generations - Mozart especially. And as meantone was sufficient for most of Handel, it was also sufficient if not essential, to Mozart. The convention wisdom is that there was a meantone era, then an era of well temperaments, and then 12tet. It is perhaps more useful to think of a larger meantone era from which well temperaments branched off into a deadend, and then a separate emergence of equal temperament in the first halfof the 19th century, during which time, incidentally, accurate metronomesand watches with second hands - both useful in setting a temperament - emerged as consumer products. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 15:03 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05308; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 15:03:38 +0200 Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 15:03:38 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA24405 Received: (qmail 2778 invoked from network); 5 Jul 1997 13:03:26 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 5 Jul 1997 13:03:26 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu