[CAUT] temperament for Schubert

A440A at aol.com A440A at aol.com
Tue Jan 13 17:26:13 PST 2009


Israel writes:

<<  are key differences relevant to musical expression in Schubert? Is he 
modulating in order to express a different feeling - or is he running the same 
melodic material through a whole bunch of different keys in order to demonstrate 
how cleverly he can do it? In the former case, he would be interested in 
accentuating the key differences - hence WT. In the latter case, the more outlying 
keys would be rather unpleasant to listen to - in which case he would be more 
likely to favor something approaching ET. Any takers out there for 
this approach? I am not a Schubert expert by any means...  >>

   Nor I, however, I have seen a rough census of Schubert's key choice in his 
piano works. His usage of them is almost exactly the same proportion as 
Mozart, Beethoven, etal. The keys with the most highly tempered thirds are the 
least used, those with the purest thirds are the most used, and the progression 
through those in between graduated.  When graphed, these composers key choice 
mimics the same shape as the thirds in a well temperment.  I don't think this is 
coincidence.  
   I have also listened to Schubert played in an A/B comparison on a Coleman 
11 and ET.  The difference is profound to me, and has been instantly 
recognized by rooms full of piano techs.  The ET rendition was almost universally 
considered lifeless and boring in comparison.  That is the only way I know to form 
some sort of value judgement on this question, listen to the same piece on two 
different tunings, and I encourage any tech that has questions on the value 
of WT's to do this.  
Regards, 



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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