Vallotti Temperament (was Pinblock/Frame...)

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/10/00 9:06:49 AM Central Daylight Time, 
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com (Farrell) writes:

<< << Hello Ed Foote: (My wife LOVES the Vallotti temperment I put on her 
piano -
 
 me too!)
 
Ed Foote replies:

 Greetings, 
     Great!  The Vallotti is a time-proven arrangement, and was held in high 
 regard for many years during the keyboards maturation.  I use a Young, 
 usually, as it keeps the tonality centered in the same place that almost 
 everybody else did, but realistically, the difference in centering tonality 
 on F or C is not something that 21st century ears are ready to discern, (but 
 someday, perhaps).  I am glad you like the change, and hope it opens up new 
 musical horizons for y'all. 
  >>

The Vallotti would have been what I would have suggested you try first too.  
Although Prof. Owen Jorgensen RPT, the esteemed researcher and practitioner 
of Historical Temperaments (HT) recommends the Thomas Young (as Ed does) and 
with good reason, the difference between the two is not very important at the 
outset.

I don't know whether you have done this by ear or with an Electronic Tuning 
Device (ETD) but particularly if you have been tuning by ear, the Vallotti 
would be the easiest transition to make from tuning Equal Temperament (ET).  
It is also easiest to tune your A3 and A4 from the fork with this 
temperament.  This is the reason I used it first and continued for a few 
years at least to use it as the only alternative to ET that I would use.  It 
is also, in fact, the very same arrangement that Steve Fairchild discovered 
independently in the early 1980's as being a useful temperament for small 
pianos with irregular scale designs.  Many universities use it as the regular 
way to tune their harpsichords even if all of their pianos are tuned in ET.

If you ever get the chance to tune for an artist who will play the Beethoven 
Piano Concerto #5 (Emperor), I would highly recommend this temperament as 
being specific for it.  It will give the piano a razor sharp, in tune sound 
that no other temperament can match.  The piece is in Eb Major.  In the 
Vallotti temperament, the 5ths are all pure and the 3rds beat more gently 
than they do in ET for all of the chords which relate to the key of Eb.  This 
gives all of the chords and arpeggios which are played in the 1st and 3rd 
movements a particularly pleasing, clean and in-tune sound.

The second movement of this piece curiously modulates to the remote key of B 
Major (rather than the more logical dominant key of Bb Major).  This key also 
has the 5th being pure (where it is often not in other  Well Temperaments 
(WT) such as the Young.  The B-D#  3rd is some 22 cents wide (a so-called 
Pythagorean 3rd) which, out of context may sound quite harsh to the 
contemporary ear, but in the context of the Emperor Concerto, it actually 
enhances the music.

The score features the piano playing single note melodic lines against broken 
chords (Moonlight Sonata style) with very wide, 10th and 17th intervals.  
These wide intervals and melodic lines with large steps give the piano a 
powerful "singing" tone when tuned in this temperament.  To me, this is very 
good evidence that Beethoven expected the piano to be tuned in some kind of 
WT and probably not ET.  Otherwise, why go to the trouble of writing in that 
remote key and having to modulate back to Eb at the end of the 2nd movement?  
If the piano were tuned in ET, all of the above mentioned effects would be 
compromised.  The reason and purpose behind writing and playing in the remote 
key are negated.

The choice of the Vallotti Temperament, in particular, for this piece is 
advantageous to the modern piano.  Sometimes this is a very important 
consideration.  How do you want the piano itself to sound?  Other 
temperaments would work, yes, but particularly when tuning a piano for 
something like a piano concerto, the technician might want to choose the one 
which will make the piano express the music the best.

If you are tuning by ear, eventually you will develop a sensitivity for just 
how far you can go with temperament before you create a sound which might be 
objectionable to some.  While the Vallotti Temperament is a good one and so 
is the Young, both feature those Pythagorean type 3rds (22 cents wide or 
more) which may easily offend some sensitive people.  Learning to make 
compromises which will mitigate such harsh intervals (at the expense of the 
slowly  beating ones) will lead you to creating a more generally acceptable 
sound for the modern piano that can take the place of ET entirely.

This is what I have done and which lead to the construction of the Equal 
Beating Victorian Temperament (EBVT) which I first started working on back in 
1992.  I was able to keep my harshest 3rds within the 18-19 cent range 
(tolerable to most contemporary ears) and instead of simply sacrificing the 
slowly beating 3rds, was able to use the canceling-out effect of Equal 
Beating to cause the typical chords and harmonies played in those keys to 
sound much purer than they really are.  I therefore created a kind of 
"universal" temperament which can be used on the modern piano to play any 
kind of music that ET can but which produces beautiful distinctions between 
the keys ("color"), remarkable clarity and a seemingly more "in-tune" sound.

With time and practice, you can find your own arrangement or learn to produce 
the same temperament and octave arrangement that I do and therefore produce 
an appealing sound that very few other piano technicians can ever approximate.

Keep up the study and development!

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin