How could Beethoven have used the Prinz

[Ed Sutton]

The Prinz temperament is very easy to tune by ear if you start with C:

Tune a pure (or not very wide) Major 3rd C-E.  Fit in the fifths from C-E. 
Or start with narrow fifths and see if you like the third, C-E.
Either way, you have some sort of "ordinary" or meantone tuning on this 
part.
Then tune pure fifths C-F-etc. When you get around to F#-B-E, you might need 
to fudge a few of them to make it all fit.
On a harpsichord or fortepiano this is very easy to do, and will produce a 
workable, highly colored well-temperament. The degree of color will depend 
on how pure you tune the first Major  3rd C-E.

Tuning like this wouild have been a very common skill for keyboard players 
in the 18th century.

Again, if you tune the historic temperaments from C, you'll be amazed how 
easy they are to tune....which is, of course, exactly why they were 
invented.

Ed Sutton


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Israel Stein" <custos3 at comcast.net>
To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: How could Beethoven have used the Prinz


> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>