HT's

[Richard Moody]

----------
> From: Susan Kline <skline@proaxis.com>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: HT's
> Date: Friday, March 13, 1998 5:33 AM
> 
> 
> 
> When Jim played the Chopin Prelude #15 (in Db major) in the Coleman
11,
> it sounded great to me. It was warm, sweet, and lilting. Then he
moved 
> it down to C major, and it sounded bland and gutless to me, quite
lacking
> in grace, and generally annoying. He put it back up -- sounded
wonderful.
 
What an extraordinary accomplishment  to transpose the Db down to C. 
But then I remember I used to hear it that way all the time.  The
piano I
learned on was a half a tone flat. So at my music teacher's I was
hearing it half step up.  But did I ever notice?
I realize Susan is talking about hearing the piece transposed in an
altered temperament scheme, but as long as we are on the Raindrop, I
am wondering about the change to four sharps.  Is it then in C#
minor?  (sounds minor to me)  Would Chopin then be exploring the
effects of the temperament his piano was in, or contrasting the major
and minor sounds?  Or as George Sand writes, "His genius was full of
the mysterious harmonies of nature."  
	Somehow I don't think these mysterious harmonies of nature are in
meantone, Well, or the "infinite varieties resulting from tuning
errors"  But if it serves Chopin's genius to hear them in different
temperaments then so be it. 

Richard Moody