How could Beethoven have used the Prinz

[Israel Stein]

At 08:48 PM 2/16/2008, Ed Foote wrote:
>Julia writes:
>
><<   How could Beethoven have used the Prinz temp? He would have had to
>use that in his later works if it only came about in 1808. Beethoven died in
>1827. He was born in 1770. So as a boy, he was playing on something probably
>developed at least 10 years prior. >>
>
>The Prinz is almost identical to temperaments that were in use around 1750 (
>D'Alembert).  It is not dissimiliar to the Kirnberger III and would easily
>have been in use for years before Beethoven was born.
>Regards,

Ed,

I would add to this that the date a temperament is published is not 
necessarily an indication of its initial use. It is quite possible - 
in fact likely - that temperaments with similar properties may have 
been in use by musicians for many years before some scholar put them 
into mathematical terms for publication.

Yes - used by musicians. The professional tuner does not emerge until 
the emergence of the higher tensioned, higher tuning-pin-torque 
pianos with metal plates. These pianos actually require that a tuning 
technique be developed - (you know, setting the pin, stabilizing the 
string tension, etc.). The older pianos were no more difficult to 
tune than harpsichords - and under most circumstances most musicians 
still tuned their own. And if by some chance they heard a temperament 
that perhaps struck them as worth exploring - it was no big deal to 
figure out how to duplicate it without charts of beat speeds 
published in some pamphlet. Or a name attached to it

And I very much suspect that nobody insisted on the sort of 
quasi-anal precision of temperament that is the norm today. As long 
as a temperament fulfilled the musical requirements (specific color 
properties) nobody worried about the precise beat speeds. Which would 
explain the phenomenon of very similar temperaments being published 
by different people under their own names many years apart. I suspect 
that by the time a temperament was published, it has already been 
widely known and used.

Which is why I find attempts to determine appropriate temperaments 
for particular composers based on their dates of publication a waste 
of time. The bottom line is - there is no way to know. As Ed wrote 
initially. And yes, it would be obvious that a meantone would not be 
used for music that modulates widely...

Israel Stein