Israel writes:
<<with snips>
I have actually heard this cited as one of the factors in the move from
WT to ET. There are others:
1. Greater dependence by composers dynamics for expression rather than
key choice,
2. Larger performance venues with the rise of subscription concerts
3. Shift in audiences from nobility to the rising bourgeoisie. ot capable
of appreciating the subtleties of temperament.
4. Greater inharmonicity that results from greater string tension tends
to fuzz the subtleties of unequal temperament. >>
I submit that the greatest three reasons we have ET today is that
factory tuners needed a standard they could all agree on, composers slowly began
moving away from the tonal framework of the Classical era, and the world's
infatuation with science. At the turn of the century, anything scientific was
considered "better", and ET is certainly a scientific result.
The proportion of key usage in the composers work gradually becomes
democratic between 1880 and today, but before, the percentages stack up to mimic
the same shape graph as the size of the M3's in a WT. I still maintain that
that is not coincidental.
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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