Blast from the past

[Clark]

> The commendable disposition shown by the people of this metropolis, 
> for encouraging an extension and improvement of the Musical Scale of 
> Keyed Instruments (for with voices and violins &c. Mr. Liston's scale 
> always has and always will be in use)...seems in a particular manner 
> to have alarmed the German Organist Mr. Kollman, for the fate of his 
> modern "scale of nature" [equal temperament], or 12 sounds only in 
> the Octave, placed at equal distances, on which his "new Theory" 
> appears entirely built, that he so pompously and incessantly compares 
> with the best writings of British Musicians, to their disadvantage, 
> in his _Quarterly Review_; which "wonderful compound of twelve Dia-
> tonic Chormatic Enharmonic Scales in one!" [Equal temperament], it is 
> admitted by Mr. K. must be abolished, as the first consequence of the 
> establishment of the "artificial Temperaments" [just intonation and 
> the meantone temperaments] of Hawkes, Loeschman, and Liston!, and 
> therefore, he takes especial pains to cry them all down as useless 
> and absurd.
>
> What a lamentable case! that the progress of Science and Improvement 
> in one of the most delightful of arts, should render the sale less 
> certain, of the voluminous works of this profound Theorist!, who, to 
> the honour, or disgrace rather of the age, broadly asserts, that 
> violins, violincellos, and voices, ought not to make any difference 
> between A-flat and G-sharp, D-flat and C-sharp, &c.!!, but should use, 
> "as nearly equal a temperament as possible," or in other words, 
> "follow the (his) true standard scale, on which all modern music 
> depends." Not doubting but the scientific and demonstrable principles 
> advanced in the _Essay on perfect Intonation_ [by Henry Liston], 
> will make their way, confirmed as they are in every case, by an 
> appeal to experiment, unimpeded by such antiquated and unphilo-
> sophical, not to say interested, opposition, as that I have been 
> alluding to.

	- Farey, John (sr.), "Further Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Liston's 
	  "Essay on perfect Intonation," 1812. p.421 (from Owen 
	  Jorgensen's "Tuning", p.380)