Option B

[Billbrpt]

In a message dated 98-01-28 06:13:27 EST, you write:

<< Well if you say Helmholtz was an "evil"scientist ...(snip)
 But hats off to Helmholtz for helping to develope what thousands of
 musicians were asking hundreds of keyboard makers to produce, a
 system of tuning that would spare us from the wolf  >>

Please remember that this was a piece of satire and that I explicitly said
that it was not to be taken literally or seriously.

A tuning system that "spares us from the wolf"  was developed long before
Helmholz came along.  In fact, the concept of ET was too but was always
rejected as having gone TOO FAR in that pursuit.  Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier
Music was written to demonstrate that a keyboard could be tuned so that all 24
major and minor keys would be ACESSIBLE.  They, of course, accessible in ET,
as they are in 1/7 comma meantone as our colleague, David Vanderhoofven has
recently discovered.  The 1/7 comma meantone still has a "wolf" but it is so
slight and mild that it is often thought of as an enhancement to the key of Ab
rather than being a reason you cannot play in it.

The now infamous Baldwin recital at the Annual Convention, made so through the
gratuitous, hostile and I might add libelous (by the very description of the
term that was provided) condemnation by the all-knowing and all-powerful
Regina Carter, Queen of the List (I'm expecting an "Off with his head!" order
from her any time, now) featured a piece by Schubert in which the so-called
"wolf" key of Ab clearly enhanced the music and the performance, in MY
opinion, of course, definately not so in hers.

But let me explain why I think it was enhanced.  Of course, there are those
who think any music of the Romantic period REQUIRES ET in order that it dull
and dumb down all of the emotion there is in it.  A few of us, however, see
and hear the value in that.  We actually like the emotional response it
evokes.  In ET, the only way to express yourself emotionally is to speed up,
slow down, play softer or louder.  This Schubert Impromptu (sorry, I don't
know its Opus number) is highly emotional in nature.

I have actually come to call it the "Bi-Polar" or "Manic-Depressive" piece
because I believe it was written to express just such a crisis and
contradiction in a person's emotional state which is out of control.  A person
experiencing such a crisis is never comfortable, never at ease.  As the piece
begins, the mood seems content enough but in the key of Ab, played in
virtually any Well-Temperament but particularly enhanced in the 1/7 comma
meantone, the normally "happy sound" of a major key is pushed to a point of
question as to whether this mood is really a healthy one.  The compser
deliberately indicated a dynamic marking of "pp" here.  Few people play it
that way though.  ET forces the pianist to try to get something more out of it
than it has to offer in the "homogenized" harmony of ET.

This brilliant and sensitive young pianist did respect the dynamic markings
though.  As much as I wanted to talk to him about the difference there might
be in the piano, I was not permitted to do so.  It was not really necessary as
it turned out anyway.  He may have thought it was an exceptional piano.  Or
then again, I think he may have been intelligent enough to realize that it was
tuned differently and that he could make that difference work for him and did
so, phenomenally well.  

As the piece progresses, the relatively happy mood, seemingly wrongly
indicated by the composer's "pp" dynamic marking (which most modern pianists
override using their opinion of how they think it should sound, believing that
it was Schubert that didn't know what was correct, never  guessing that the
totally arbitrary imposition of ET against everyone's will and without
consultation is the true culprit) changes progressively into a very
electrified mood of intense ecstasy. If the pianist starts out too loud and
fast with this piece, there is no room left to acheive the intensity that the
composer intended.

After reaching this point of ecstasy a few times, each one being more intense
than the last, the poor soul's mood finally crashes to the depths of
depression and changes into A minor with a plodding, "drag the feet" rhythm
and tempo.  The victim finally raises himself up out of this abysmal rut only
to begin the cycle over again.

Of course, nowadays, most "normally thinking" people like Regina Carter, the
all-knowing, all-powerful Queen of the List, never think about things like
this.  They only hear "dissonance" in the 3rds and try to neutralize it out.
I'm sure this composition and the way it was played merely "hurt her ears" as
it did the few others who had their manic depressive fits with Kent Webb after
the recital and therefore killed his willingness to ever have an HT used in
the Baldwin recital, ever again.  People like Regina "turn off the music when
it comes on".  They want all hills flattened, all dips filled in.  They only
want pleasant, easy going moods in their music.  Low calorie, quickly prepared
and consumed.   There just isn't time for any real texture or emotion.

Now the Baldwin recital has returned to the state of normalcy as the majority
of this list would have it.  Does anyone remember anything remarkable about
the last two?  Anyone talk about them?  Were there any technicians going up to
the piano afterwards to check out how it was tuned?  Anyone discussing
options?  Or was everyone simply content that some nice music was played and
they all filed out afterwards?

Of course, this is all just my opinion and I am trying to force my way of
thinking on to everyone else.  Only my ideas are worth considering, no one
else's.  I am unreasonable, unethical and go around doing just as I please
every day just for my own self gratification.  But then I have a right to do
so.  It's a free country.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin