Historical Tuning

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings,

Stephen Birkett writes;
 >Increased inharmonicity of modern piano over harpsichord is true, but
>not true for big early 19th C. pianos. If you do some calculation you
>get quite astonishing inharmonicity constants, esp. with the unwound
>bass strings (e.g. 1.5mm sold brass). Inharmonicity is also higher on
>these pianos primarily due to the short scale (<300 mm), tensions
>notwithstanding. Treble inhamonicity is also extremely high.

THAT IS WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS LIST!

   I don't see many such instruments here, and this is good info to know.   I
would like to ask of those familiar with early 19th century pianos:

    Does the scaling indicate that these pianos would favor non-equal tuning?

    Does the inharmonicity pose a problem to achieving what we accept as ET
today?

    I know that my 1892 S&S upright has a totally different voice when tuned
in a well or meantone tuning, ( bless it's heart, it is my temperament
"sketch-pad").

 and Stephen also writes;
>>Chopin (e.g.) was particularly fond of many-flat key signatures
>>which would have been pretty spicy in a non-equal temperament.

     I have listened to Chopin on the well temperaments, and was surprised to
find it not as dissonant as the paper description had led me to believe.
 When we remember that purity is a quality found in opposition between thirds
and fifths, it makes more sense. ( or maybe I am getting too used to
dissonance!!)
     I had the occasion to tune a temperament for a customer that was playing
all Chopin music last fall, and he was intrigued by the description of the
DeMorgan temperament that Jorgenson has published. (1843).
     The phone was ringing when I returned home, my customer had had some
sort of epiphany, and rambled on about how all of a sudden, Chopin made sense
to him.
When I listened to it later,  I saw what he meant.  To those of you who want
to hear something really fine,  Chopin's Opus 28 Preludes , on a DeMorgan,
are quite a beautiful thing to hear.

Regards to all,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn