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In a message dated 12/20/02 9:30:43 AM Pacific Standard Time,
Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no writes:
> Hi folks... got this question in from my friend Alex Galembo and am
> posting it as per his request. Anyone with good advice can either post
> to the list or write to Alex using the email address below
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
> Alexander Galembo writes :
>
> My friend, a piano technician from St. Petersburg, Russia, wrote me
> asking me whether I know anything about some specific "Chopin pure
> interval tuning" or "Chopin temperament" - But I never heard about that.
>
> Do you have any knowledge in this specific quesstion?field? I am not at
> the piano technicians list presently, so I cannot ask the list myself,
> more that I even don't know how exactly it is called in English.
> I tried internet, but did not find anything-
>
>
>
> Alexander Galembo, Ph.D.
> Visiting researcher
> Dept. of Speech, Music and Hearing
> Royal Inst. of Technology
> Stockholm, Sweden
>
>
> E-mail: alex@speech.kth.se
>
> WEB: http://www.geocities.com/galembo_alex/
>
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
>
I'll do my best to answer this question without being flippant or
inflammatory since I respect Dr. Galembo and know that his question is
serious. If you think my response is worthy, you may forward it to him.
The truth is that it is not known exactly which temperament or temperaments
Chopin may have used since he did not write about that subject. Many famous
composers did not write anything about temperament use, so this frustrates
those of us today who would like to make the music sound as authentic as
possible. It must also be said that the pianos Chopin used, reportedly
Pleyel and Broadwood were precursors to the modern instrument we know today.
With that in mind, it may be said that no matter what we do, we are
presenting some kind of altered or modernized version of what Chopin or any
pre-20th Century composers may have produced.
We can only assume that Chopin was exposed to the temperaments in use during
his time. He lived from 1810 to 1849. This was before the Victorian age
whose very mild temperaments many people like to use for his music today,
usually but not always with success. It was during the era of Jean Jousse
who was highly critical of many people of his time's attempts at trying to
tune Equal Temperament (ET).
During that time, there were some people of which Montal was a good example
who were advocating and trying to tune ET. The problem was that there was
not enough good information available at that time to really permit a true ET
to be effected. Therefore, many tuners, believing they were tuning ET ended
up tuning a Quasi Equal Temperament (QET) ("quasi" means "almost").
The fact that these temperaments were not quite equal meant that there were
tonal effects being produced whether they were recognized or not. Today, most
of us believe that Dr. William Braide White's book, "Piano Tuning and Allied
Arts" (from the early 1900's) provided adequate information for truly
effecting ET. I have long disputed this claim. I believe that not until
around 1980 with a combination of the identification of the 4:5 ratio of
Contiguous 3rds, the PTG Standardized Tuning Exam and the perfection of
Electronic Tuning Devices (ETD) for piano tuning were Piano Technicians truly
able in large numbers to tune ET.
Those people who tune pianos today but who have not mastered the finer points
and who do not have or do not know how to program an ETD well and properly or
are not able to aurally correct erroneous program results will often create a
QET or even the inverse of a Well Tempered Tuning (WT), anywhere from just
very slight nuances to blatant backwardness. As you know, I have often
talked about this and call it "Reverse Well" (RW). Jean Jousse was the first
person whom I have found who identified it although he did not give the
tendancy to make this error a name or label.
Owen Jorgensen recently wrote an article in the PTG Journal which cited
Jousse and the QET's which he disliked. (I personally think there can be
great value in the choice of a QET when the time is right). In it, he used
the very same quote from Jousse which I had selected a few years previously.
[From my website]
"ET...has the following disadvantages: ... it cannot be obtained in the
strict sense as may be proved, not only mathematically, but also by daily
experience; therefore the best equally tempered instruments are still
unequally tempered, and, what is worse, often times in [the] wrong places."
So, Chopin may have been exposed to many different types of temperaments. It
may even have been that he never heard the same one twice.
I strongly suspect that what is referred to above, the "Chopin pure
interval tuning" or "Chopin temperament" was something Chopin never heard
but today's technicians on modern concert grands have found works well for
Chopin and thus they have labeled it the "Chopin Temperament". It is none
other than the controversial Equal Temperament with Pure 5ths (ETP5).
While I personally have as much to criticize about this temperament as Jousse
did about the QET's, I reluctantly admit that it can and does work well for
Chopin on the right piano under the right circumstances.
Chopin's music reflects a departure from earlier composers who most often
chose to write in keys with fewer sharps & flats. Chopin often wrote in Ab
and Db (4 & 5 flats). These keys are usually considered too harsh in many
earlier temperaments. But Chopin wrote many wonderful melodies and harmonies
(using 10th & 17ths) in these keys. There could be more than one reason for
this. The piano itself was evolving and improving. If it was tuned in a
milder WT or Meantone (MT), he may have found the extra vibrancy in these
keys titillating.
It could also be that the tuners of the time were mixing up the rigid rules
for WT that Andreas Werkmeister had created. The keys Chopin liked the best
may not have been as strong as a typical WT or MT would have provided. This
would have been so if someone tuned in the seemingly odd, RW style of
DeMorgan or a Montal style QET.
If we fast forward to the present, we find a large, concert grand such as the
Steinway with a high degree of inharmonicity. It is well known today that in
order to properly effect an ET on a modern piano, the octaves must be
stretched (expanded) a little and the temperament be spread equally over that
larger territory. A piano with a high degree of inharmonicity lends itself
to a greater amount of this stretch than one with a lower degree.
Since the Steinway piano's scale design has not changed during the entire
20th Century and into the 21st, Steinway tuners (to which everyone tips their
hat with respect) have traditionally forced the octave wider and wider until
the theoretically tempered 5ths have become pure or very nearly so. About
1985, a technician named Lucas Mason published a book about this called "The
New Tuning". To his dismay, he has not really received the acclaim and
credit he seems to think he deserves for it.
Tuning an ET with this extra wide octave and purer 5ths will naturally make
the 3rds, 10ths and 17ths beat faster. A theoretically 14 cent wide 3rd may
be augmented to 16 cents, into the area created by some of the very mild
Victorian style WT's such as the Moore. If only Chopin and other Romantic
era music is to be played on this large, high inharmonicity concert grand,
the ETP5 can work quite well.
The sound can be so clean and exciting that people will immediately believe
that this is now the best solution for all pianos and all music. That is
where I disagree strongly. Many technicians have tried this under other
circumstances and failed miserably. Particularly on a low inharmonicity
piano which resists it, the failed result is most often a RW. If so, the
instrument's owner may react quite negatively.
In my opinion, there is a much better alternative in most instances to the
ETP5. It is a QET usually called "Marpurg" although I am quite sure that
Marpurg himself never tuned it. In Owen Jorgensen's handbook of the Equal
Beating Temperaments, he provides what he titles the "Marpurg-Neidhardt
Composite Quasi Equal Temperament". Most people today who know this
temperament do a slightly different version that I would label the
"Marpurg-Neidhardt-PTG Composite Quasi Equal Temperament".
I add the "PTG" because the 3 contiguous 3rds, F3-A3, A3-C#4 and Db4-F4,
rather than being tuned Equal Beating are tuned with the 4:5 ratio which true
ET has. It is a very easy temperament for a modern ET tuner to learn to tune
by ear or to adapt from an ETD programmed ET.
Tune the initial F3-A3-C#4-F4 exactly the same as would be for regular ET
(including the appropriate amount of stretch).
Then, from each of these notes tuned, tune the available 4ths & 5ths which
lie within the F3-F4 octaves perfectly pure. From F3, tune A#3(Bb3) and C4
as pure intervals. From A3, tune D4 and E4 as pure intervals. From C#4,
tune F#3 and G#3 as pure intervals. As easy and simple as that.
There will now only be 3 notes left to reconcile: G3, B3 and D#4(Eb4).
Simply find the point where G3 beats exactly the same from both C4 and D4.
Similarly, find the Equal Beating compromise for B3 from F#3 and E4. Lastly,
find the Equal Beating compromise for D#4(Eb4) from G#3(Ab3) and A#3(Bb3).
This will leave you with a temperament in which all 3rds and 6ths will beat,
ascend and descend exactly the same as regular ET. The bonus will be that
there will be 9 pure 4ths & 5ths and only 3 tempered ones. It will give any
piano and extra "clean" sound that regular ET does not have. While the 3
tempered 5ths will stand out noticeably when testing the way a technician
does, they virtually go unrecognized when actual music is played.
The Marpurg-Neidhardt-PTG Quasi Equal Temperament can be substituted for
regular ET to play any and all kinds of music, including but certainly not
limited to Chopin on any modern piano.
Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
<A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A>
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