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[Ron Torrella]

Following is from a former colleague, Steve Manley:

>From smanley@kentlaw.eduTue May  2 15:21:41 1995
Date: Tue, 2 May 95 8:49:00 -0600
From: Steven Manley <smanley@kentlaw.edu>
To: torrella@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: RE: More on Bilson (FWD)

Ron, feel free to pass this along:

Bilson is hardly disinterested about how he tunes a Graf for Beethoven.

Bilson has long tuned his five-octave fortepianos in Classical
circulating temperament, and he has developed a high degree of skill and
interest in this.  But where a five-octave Walter is a Classical piano, a
six-and-a-half octave Graf is a middle-Romantic piano; the two invite
different tunings.

Should one tune the same way for Beethoven's last sonata as for the
_Pathetique_?  No.  The earlier work requires a more Classical tuning,
while the late work requires something more modern.

Equal temperament was the system that dominated the commentary by 1815.
It was not practiced with the scientific accuracy of today's specialists,
of course, but increasingly whatever inequality prevailed was random, not
artful.   Bilson acknowledges this by tuning "equal" temperament in a
casual manner that in fact yields slightly unequal results.  But his
tuning technique is solid.

I personally would tune a Graf for late Beethoven in a slightly
Classically inflected temperament, but I have no objection to, nor claim
historical superiority over, someone tuning a rough equal temperament for
this purpose.