David writes: << My point was that many HT's make an arbitrary choice about which keys will have more "intensity" due to decreasing sonority as one moves through the circle of fifths and away from the key of C. Arbitrary? I think not! The well-temperaments are not arbitrary at all, they all obey the same basic rules that Werkmeister published. Intensity can be ameliorated by using a 10th instead of a 3rd,easily enough, but arbitrary denotes a more random approach than the range of WT's exhibit. >>That choice may not always be appropriate. Chopin's etude in Ab, the so called Butterfly Etude, I don't think benefits from HT's that create more dissonance, as it were, in that key. << It will help to remember that the keys with the more tempered thirds also have the more pure fifths. The melodic line of pure intervals has its own effect. >>Neither would the Nocturne in Db. That is not to say that the piece would be wholly unpleasant or that a pianist couldn't give a satisfactory performance. But the arbitrariness of which keys vary and how becomes evident in such a case. We could, afterall, choose to have the key of F# with the most sonority and increase the dissonance as we move toward the key of C. << We could, but there is no evidence thaat Brahms or anybody else used such a temperament. (this was a thought when we chose to use a DeMorgan for the Chopin piece on "6 Degrees", I think it was a failure) >>Ed's point that I was commenting on was that modulation needed the benefit of a change in key color to be interesting, and that modulation away from the tonic benefited from a greater intensity offered by HT's. << My point was not that modulation 'needed' a change in color to be interesting. My point was that modulation's effects were enhanced by the changes. Modulation away from tonic may or may not create a greater "intensity", it may also move to a more serene harmony, depending on the key choice of the composer. >> But it is hard to get away from the notion that if we use temperaments that create distinct differences between keys, we are imposing our own values about the composer's intention more than we would be in ET. >> This is only true if you can offer a plausible argument that the composer was using or thinking in ET. And that is hard to do with composers that worked before ET was remotely possible or historically indicated. It is fairly difficult to support that Bach used ET, so for us to play his music in ET is a far greater impositon of values than the use of any of the WT's. Regards, Ed Foote
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