evolution/ Horace G's Marpurg I choice

[Billbrpt]

In a message dated 98-03-26 15:05:49 EST, you write:

<< Bill,
  Take a soma.>>

I don't know what that is.
  
 <<Doing real concert work is rather like riding a Harley.  Since it  seems
clear that it needs to be explained, you wouldn't  understand anyway, so I
won't try.
  Horace  >>

I do "real" concert work too Horace, and just as I thought, you could not
support your actions.  I asked the questions the way a lawyer would ask them,
knowing the answer to each and knowing that you would not have a good answer
for any of them.

When you came to Madison several years ago, you were just as full of baloney
then as I have often seen you here on this List.  It seems that you enjoy
throwing out little esoteric tidbits to make it sound like you have some kind
of vast and deep knowledge experience over and above all others but when it
really comes down to some cold hard facts , sound reasoning and advice, you
often come up short.

The real reson does not have to be explained to me but maybe some of the
others need to know:  The reason you chose the Marpurg I temperament is that
you know very well that ET is inadequate and just doesn't satisfy or really
even work.  You will tell people that it works but you know in your heart and
conscience that it does not.  Therefore you do something else, something that
you think you can get away with, that no one will notice.  The problem is, you
could have done something else that no one would have had any problem with
that would have been a much better choice than the one you made this time.

I have laid off from any blunt crticism of you before, especially of the
voicing job you did here in Madison which required a complete redoing after
your departure and of the preaching you did about how ET is the only
acceptable temperament to use in a professional situation. You made it sound
as if you had done it all before and still come to the conclusion that ET is
the one and only possible temperament that could ever be used.  Yet, in the
Journal and on this List, you are still trying to find something better.  The
examples you give that "so and so could not even tell what temperament it was"
are completely pointless and without merit.  I have refrained from answering
other little "wise" remarks you have tossed in my direction.  But when you put
in a post script,  "...and no, Bill, I wouldn't think ofusing that Viotti
temperament for Beethoven 5, Marpurg I is a muchmore appropriate
choice.(sic)",  I think it is time to demonstrate that I just might know a
little more than you may think I do about what I do and what I am talking
about.

I would never tune Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto in Marpurg I.  It is a
choice even more inappropriate than ET would be.  I would never tune the piano
at A-444 either.  If it meant that I would not get the job, then so be it. You
told me once, in so many words, "The only reason one would want to be a
Concert Technician is ego."  While I see that you really do fulfill your
definition of why you belive one does that kind of work, I think there is a
lot more to it than that.

I do not have time to take a rest.  There is too much demand for my services
to permit it.  The discussion and debate about HT's will continue as long as
there is an interest in it.

Bill Bremmer
Madison, Wisconsin