[CAUT] historic temp thoughts

Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu
Mon Nov 30 12:18:04 MST 2009


On Nov 30, 2009, at 11:05 AM, Ed Sutton wrote:

> Instrumentation?
> Lute and harpsichord together?
> It will take a very clever lutenist to approximate meantone, though  
> it can sometimes be done.
> And most modern recorders are tuned in ET.
> I think it would be wonderful to find an ensemble willing to really  
> work on these problems.
> es


	Yes, the lute would most likely be fretted to ET (exceptions existed,  
but seem to have been pretty rare). And it seems that lute and  
harpsichord were used together, especially theorbo and harpsichord.  
Yet the overwhelming bulk of evidence says that up to 1700 1/4 comma  
MT was by far the predominant tuning for keyboards, throughout Europe  
and especially Italy and France. So one has to assume they made do. As  
for the recorder (and other woodwinds), the way they adapted  
intonation was through a wide variety of alternate fingerings,  
together with embouchure adjustment.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu





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