source file: mills2.txt
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 16:32:38 +0200

Subject: Re:Historical Temperaments

From: Daniel Wolf <DJWOLF_MATERIAL@compuserve.com>

Ed Remler wrote:

<1) Broadwood's remarks relate only to ET's introduction to England. 1811<is the year he wrote an article describing and advocating it in England.<He claimed it was in general use but it is clear that he must have meant<that in reference to continental Europe which England had been separated<from by the Napoleonic wars. In fact ET was not generally used for
<pianos in England until 1846, and no English organ was tuned to ET even
<by the time of the (British) Great Exhibition  of 1851.

The problem with this remark is that it assumes a backward position for
England.
It is absolutely clear that piano manufacturing in the period in questionwas most
advanced in England (hence the demand for English instruments by all the
Viennese
masters), and it would be surprising to find that the tuning practice
would be behind the continent.

<2)Prior to the publication by Mersenne of the correct frequency ratios
<for ET in 1636 it would have been practically impossible to tune in ET.
<Subsequent to that time it spread through continental Europe. Mersenne,
<the founder of physical acoustics, discovered harmonics and beats
<between them and the history of the use of beats to tune in ET is
<unknown to me, but exact rules for ET tuning are relatively unimportant.<First of all, of course, tuning is never exact. Second of all the St.
<Jacobi-Kirche organ in Hamburg was tuned to ET as early as 1688 which
<suggests that at least one practical method for tuning in ET based on
<Mersenne's discoveries was already known. Third, von Helmholtz (p.321 of<Dover Edition) quotes Marpurg who quotes Kirnberger, a pupil of J.S.
<Bach, that he required all major Thirds to be sharpened, and this can
<only mean sharpened with respect to MT which is 14 cents flatter the ET.<This is important not only to show Bach's preferences, but to indicate
<how clavier tuners probably tuned in ET as a practical matter at that
<time (pre 1750). Furthermore, Bach's son Emanuel is quoted in 1753 as
<declaring ET as 'required' for the 'true art of playing the clavier'.

The publication of the correct ratios is insufficient to produce a correct
tuning.
And accurate clock or metronome would also be neccesary and such
instruments
were not widely available until after Mozart's death. (The famous Paris
pendulum
measurements of tempi for Mozart are a good example of the latitude
tolerated,
which would certainly not be adequate to claim any tuning as ET).

The claims for the Jacobi-Kirche are anecdoctal and were - with the
available
technology - impossible to verify. In addition, I would be very skepticalabout the
influence of a single Evangelische Church organ in the Free and Hansa State
of Hamburg upon Catholic organs at general in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy.

(Those unfamiliar with German history or language should know that at thetime
in question, no large German state existed but many smaller ones, and that
the
divisions by religious confession and language/dialect were formidable. Acitizen
of Hamburg was usually Protestant and spoke a language that a Catholic from
Salzburg
would have understood only with great difficulty - or only through use ofan intermediate
language). Indeed, the musical demands upon Catholic Church organs duringthe
Josephian reform era were so circumscribed that the virtuoso organ
literature of
earlier eras would have been unusable in the Church - even if the composers
of
that repertoire had been Catholic. Meantone was entirely sufficient for the
repertoire
that was actually used in Austrian Catholic Churches.  Kirnberg's tuning do indeed introduce sharp thirds but they are by no means
ETs.

<3) There is no doubt that all the great masters of the classical period
<considered ET to be the ideal. (There are also remarks about this by
<Charles Rosen in, I believe, his 'The Classical Style'.) As someone has already pointed out, Mozart taught his students an interval
theory
that described unequal divisions of the whole tone. The Attwood-Studien are
certainly
the closest Mozart himself comes to describing an ideal, if he had one, and
that looks
much more like meantone than ET. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
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