HT Reaction

[Avery Todd]

Ed, Bill & List,

   With a little help from a few of my cyber tuner friends, I decided to
"get my feet wet" with Historical Tuning.
   On July 3, the chairman of our piano department, Nancy Weems, is going
to play the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major with our Texas Music
Festival Orchestra. With only one composer represented, 2 B's in her
studio and 2 D's in the performance hall to use for practice (her and me),
I decided to go for it, as they say. Being an educational institution,
this seems the perfect place to try it and the students need to be exposed
to it as part of their education.
   The teacher was at first reluctant because she's had no experience or
exposure to HT's at all. So over the last few weeks since I originally
mentioned the possibility of doing it, I've been quoting positive comments
I've seen on the list, primarily about the colors, interpretation
differences, shading, etc.,  trying to gradually win her over enough to
try it.
   Last Monday, I put Young's Well-temperament #1 from the SAT manual on
one of her studio pianos. She didn't know when I was going to do it, but
I ran into her as I was leaving that day and told her what I'd done. So
the last 3-4 days she's been playing with it.
   Late this morning, I had a message on my phone from her saying: "I just
wanted to let you know that it's, uh, well, it's COOOOL! I like it. (A
little chuckle here.) And you're right, the chords blend differently, the
different tonalities *do* have different colors as you go through the
transitions. And it isn't all *that* different, so that there's anything
that would throw me off. So, I guess it's a go." You get the idea.
   She's reasonably young, very personable and easy to get along with, so
I was hoping she'd come through. She did. So this time it looks as though
it's smooth sailing for the rest of it.
   The only unknown right now is the conductor, Carl St. Clair, who is the
Music Director for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. Anyone ever worked with
him? I know he's guest conducted the N.Y Philharmonic L.A. Phil. as well
as major orchestras such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Houston,
Minnesota and Vancouver, among others. I've been told that he's very open
to new things and current trends, so I'm not expecting any
problem.
   Two questions I'd like to ask those of you with experience doing this
in orchestral situations. Pertaining to intonation, I've read that singers
and string players tend to gravitate away from ET anyway, left to their
own devices. What about wind players? Do they also? Is it harder for them
to adjust to an HT than it would be for string players? Wouldn't their
instruments be designed and built to play in ET?
   The second question is informing people about it. Especially the
audience at the concert. Should anything at all be said about it? The
programs have long since been printed, so it would have to be as an insert.
The other alternative is for the conductor, me, or whoever to say something
very short about HT's, either at the beginning of the concert or right
before the piece is played. (Boy, I'm sure glad I have Ed's CD liner
notes!!!!!) :-) The opening piece is also by Mozart: Overture to 'The
Impresario'.
   Thanks for wading through all this (those of you who did :-) ). Any
comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome.

Avery

P.S. As if I don't have enough to do already, I have to go and add HT"s
to the list. :-)

___________________________
Avery Todd, RPT
Moores School of Music
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-4893
713-743-3226
atodd@uh.edu
http://www.music.uh.edu/