source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:05:00 +0200 Subject: classical meantone - the horn From: Daniel Wolf I spoke with Douglas Leedy, who is also a hornist, and he explained that handhorn technique traditionally used different hand positions in the bell for sharps and flats. I went on to look at Groves and was surprised to see just such a table of positions from the 19th century, and the implicationis clearly more in the meantone than in the ET/well direction, with sharps lower than flats. Inasmuch as the classical orchestra was an orchestra without continuo instruments, and chamber music with keyboard is exceptional for both Haydn and Mozart (though not for Beethoven), we find major genres without instruments in any fixed temperament. For these reasons alone, it's probably worthwhile re-examining the intonational assumptions about how this music was performed. While I will not go so far as Vogel and proposeJust Intonations for works by these composers, I think the fact that the tonal vocabulary for most works of Haydn or Mozart does not extend beyondthe resources of Meantone - and limits intonationally ''exotic'' chords to the development sections, is highly suggestive. (I could also state this fact in a different way: Haydn and Mozart avoided keys that would have been acceptable in a well temperament). If we add the fact that certain instruments (organs, horns) were known to have been tuned or played in meantone, the case for the acceptance of meantone in the late 18th century becomes even stronger. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:20 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA26452; Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:21:05 +0200 Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:21:05 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA18939 Received: (qmail 25933 invoked from network); 11 Jul 1997 05:59:57 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 11 Jul 1997 05:59:57 -0000 Message-Id: <33C5CC16.7169@dnvr.uswest.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu