On Jan 24, 2009, at 4:11 PM, A440A at aol.com wrote: > With > some minor idiosyncrasies (such as LVB's favoring Eb), the choice of > home keys > mimics the rising tempering of the thirds, with C being far and away > the most > used key and F# being far and away the least used. Hi Ed, One can interpret this phenomenon many ways. I certainly don't deny the overwhelming dominance of the more consonant keys vis a vis mean tone and WTs (ie, B-flat to D), during the time when those tunings were common practice. That tendency to select certain keys over others would transfer to later times by habit if nothing else. But there are several other factors as well. There is, for example the question of composers trying to make a living, writing music that people will buy. Throw in more than a couple flats or sharps, and the masses won't touch it. I think that is an equally persuasive argument for why C, G and F predominate in the keyboard works you cite. And, in fact, in looking through pieces in the key of C (and extending the range of study far beyond Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert), one generally finds (with a few exceptions) that the easier, blander pieces of any given composer are in that key. On this basis, one might suggest that C major stands for banality, as its "key color" attribute. Personally, I think they were being pragmatic, writing easy music in an easy key for a public that wasn't very accomplished. Prejudices and tendencies of thought live on for centuries. There has been a prejudice against ET from the very beginning, because of its roots in the realm of the irrational (ratios that can't be resolved to whole numbers, no matter how large, something Pythagoras proved and that we tend to take for granted, though it is a mind-boggling concept). This prejudice lives to this day. Similarly prejudices about what a piece in the key of E-flat should convey might well take on a life of their own, long after any possible connection to where the "wolf" was in that key has ceased to have any practical reality. In any case, to make a solid case about key color and temperament by numerical analysis based on predominance of pieces in various keys, you really need to go beyond the keyboard. Is the prevalence of keys for keyboard compositions completely different from that of wind or string ensembles? (I don't believe so). Or are they essentially the same? Do not the same arguments apply? And yet the strings and winds are not constrained by temperament, and since they always play (or try to play) "just" intervals, the keys are equal in key color as defined by a Valotti/Young style scheme: they are all "C major." But composers use the same "key color" attributes for this music, music that is performed "untempered," as they do for pieces for keyboard or other fixed pitch instruments, that must be played tempered. In sum, although your numerical analysis of key prevalence looks, on surface, as if it amounts to something, when you examine it closely, it doesn't stand up terribly well. This is not to deny the importance of MT, modified MT, and WT in the theory and practice of composers over a considerable span of history. But if we want to try to get at actual historical performance practice, to the extent that is possible, direct evidence is far more persuasive. And that evidence points precisely where di Veroli says it does. I suggest reading sources beyond his one post, which may be slightly lacking in organization and syntax but is an excellent summing up of commonly accepted ideas. Which doesn't make for an either/or, black/white conclusion. There is ample influence for survival of various threads of unequal temperament parallel to ET throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. As there is ample evidence of ET being used and/or advocated for during the Baroque and even earlier. Neither should be denied. The closest we get to fact is on the order of "the bulk of the evidence says that this temperament style was used" in a particular time and place. If the evidence is ambiguous, that should be noted. If it is unanimous, that should also be noted. Bringing it to the practical realm - the original question of this thread (about Schubert) - I think the answer is that ET has the weight of historical evidence behind it. That doesn't make it "wrong" to advocate for a WT as plausible alternative, but one should do so with caveats, noting that most people with a right to an opinion (having actually looked at and analyzed the existing evidence) hold a different opinion. And, of course, if one simply believes that Schubert sounds better in a WT, one can express that opinion as well. But it shouldn't be given as based on historical evidence and on the consensus of scholarly opinion, nor should it be expressed as having equal weight in terms of being historically appropriate. I hope I don't need to add that I make no argument against those who prefer something besides ET, and who offer it to their clients as an alternative. (Nor am I personally an advocate for or against ET, except for purely practical reasons). That is an entirely different question. It is when we get into the business of making claims about history that I raise objections. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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