I was still wiping Jorgensen's Kool-Aid from my lips as I made the declaration that nineteenth century composers ,"...WERE hearing non-homogenized harmonies." Should have followed up with, "Id'n it?" I mean, I am so new to the realm of historical temperaments, and this unequivocal proclamation was "so last week" on my part. Jorgensen's thesis that ET was not widely and accurately practiced until after the turn of the century (and the intriguing connection he makes between the symmetrical--and, therefore, non-tonal nature--of ET and concurrent developments in atonal music) is certainly a very exciting notion to encounter, and may have been true to a certain extent, although we are not able to establish to what degree. THIS week, my understanding has been updated to allow for the possibility of both quasi-equal- and well-temperaments being used in Schubert's time (and forward to the twentieth century). Further discussion's with the pianist in question (did I mention that we are related?) leave her thinking that being informed and playing Schubert in ET are not necessarily incompatible (she supports this by adding that Schubert would, apparently, transpose songs at a drop of the hat to accommodate a singer's range, presumably without asking for the piano to be retuned.) That said, she still wants very much to play Schubert's piano literature in temperaments other than ET, so she can add her artistic impression to the scholarly research (particularly since the latter is inconclusive).20 Personally, I'm all for it. When I first posed the question of what temperament might be appropriate for Schubert, I didn't expect it to generate much heat by way of response. What has flowed has made me more proud than ever to be a participant in this distinguished list. Such learned, thoughtful posts. So much careful research and listening! Not that the final word has been written on this subject, but let me take this opportunity to thank Fred, Ed, Israel, David and all the others who have contributed--I cannot tell you how appreciative I and others who are benefiting so greatly from discussion are. Alan Eder -----Original Message----- From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 7:28 am Subject: Re: [CAUT] Montal's book <SNIP> I'll also return here to a post by Alan Eder: "The underlying issue for the pianist in question re: Schubert is really whether or not ET is historically appropriate. According to Jorgensen--and contrary what this pianist is being taught (at the doctoral level, no less)--, the answer is no. Beyond that, it is, as you point out, a matter of conjecture. Though we will never know what keyboard composers of centuries past were hearing when they played a certain chord or made a modulation, we do know that prior to the twentieth century, they WERE hearing non-homogenized harmonies." The dominant v iew expressed on this list over the years has been that stated by Alan, very nicely and succinctly. I am providing a contrary view, and doing my best to back it with evidence rather than merely with rhetoric. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090116/6181f8f2/attachment.html>
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