more on this temperament thing

[Richard Moody]

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Servinsky <tompiano@gate.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 6:27 AM
Subject: Re: more on this temperament thing


| I still wonder  how Chopin, Mozart, or Beethoven, would be composing if
they
| were in today's world playing on today's instruments. I personally feel,
| they too would favor the flexibility of ET. Of course, that's pure
| speculation!
| Tom Servinsky,RPT

But interesting speculation.   We wonder why in this age (of ET) there are
no compositions on the level of Chopin, Mozart, or Beethoven especially
since the piano has been in its fullest evolution for the last 110 years.
Indeed it is the new pianos that keeps us enthralled with the old masters.
    Regarding what temperament the masters may have heard or preferred,  is
a question so far not answered on the academic level at least.  There is no
direct evidence from the Masters themselves regarding the tuning of their
instruments.
We have letters from Mozart visiting piano makers of his time.  Yet nothing
of how he tuned his instrument.  If there were several methods or
temperaments available there should have been some mention of this
somewhere in all of the Master's writings about their music.  Or was tuning
so universaly the same that no one thought to mention it?  Perhaps
temperament didn't matter to them.  The evidence points to either a
meantone or efforts towards ET.
    Since most of what we read from the masters has been translated perhaps
tuning issues were not considered interesting enough to translate.  However
more than a few works were written on method as in Mozart's father's book
on violin playing.  Surely in these, tuning must have been mentioned.
Since the musicians tuned their own instruments it is inconceivable that
nothing has come down to us from the Baroque and Classical period that show
how how the players were instructed to tune in that time.
    To be sure there are writings from that time that mention tuning such
as Mersenne in compilation of musical instruments of his time,  or articles
on tuning theory such as Young, Huygens or Couperin.  (Couperin  I think
needs to be researched for actual instructions in "L'art de toucher le
clavecin" for example)
But actual instructions for the average musician on how to tune his
harpsichord, spinet, virginal, or clavichord are strangely lacking or have
simply been over looked by musicologists and music historians.
    We do have Pietro Aaron's instructions from 1529 which indicate quarter
comma meantone.   On the historians wish list are similar instructions from
1629 and 1729, and 1829.   There are  hand written outlines of tuning
schemes that can be found in music manuscripts in collections from those
times.   However the ones I have seen (Thomas Jefferson) show only the
sequence of notes, with an interval, usually a 3rd and the word "test" but
they don't say what the test is!.
    ---ric