Pain, (was Hearing the difference)

[A440A@aol.com]

Dave writes: 
> When I listened to the 2nd movement of the Pathetique on Ed's
>Temperament CD it was so obvious I couldn't continue listening.  As
> an ET lover personally, I've not listened to the entire movement.
> That's because my ear/brain have been forever altered by 63 years of
> listening to ET.  

    AAAYYEEEE!  I knew it when we did it, and I did it myself at first!   "I 
feel your pain"...
We debated the use of the Kirnberger for that piece, even listened to a 
couple of other tunings that had less tempering in those most remote keys.  
However, the choice was made on a combination of Enid Katahn's musical 
judgement and my desire to place a full comma harmony out there where we 
could see what the world thought of it.  I have gotten two kinds of widely 
disparate, but strongly held lines of feedback from it, we could perhaps 
profit from at least considering the differences.  
    In Op 13 (Pathetique),  the 2nd mvt(marked "adagio cantabile) is in Ab.  
In the particular tuning we used on it, this key has a full 21.5 cent third 
as its tonic.  This seems to represent the limit that any of the temperament 
authors allowed in their  WT's.  (the MT's in various degrees contain wider 
thirds than this, ranging from high 20's to the mid 30 cent range, 1/4 comma, 
of course suffering from the diesis, or 41 cents).  
      When we first listened to it, the tempering just killed me.  The hair 
stood up on the back of my neck.   I thought it was going to be pretty rough 
on anybody's ears.  The last few years among the technicians has sorta proven 
that out, though there are many techs that have told me they really liked the 
feel of it.  However, there are more than techs listening to this, and that 
is where an altogether different response came from.  
     When I voiced reservations about so "expressive" a third, Enid countered 
by saying, "It's the Pathetique!  It is SUPPOSED to create a very uneasy and 
gripping feeling in this section, this is torment, pathos"!  The idea is, of 
course, that you won't be left out there in horrible-land, and when you 
return to the home key, you will feel an emotional charge that you could not 
have gotten without the detour.  Basically, your "tight shoe" theory of 
musical harmony and feeling.  Cool, I thought, why question the informed 
artist on taste?
    From the musicians and other listeners, there hasn't been a track on that 
CD that has caused anywhere near as much positive comment as the 2nd mvt of 
Op. 13 !  The non-technician musicians and listeners seem to find that 
particular piece of music strongly affecting. They feel it is most beautiful 
and expressive. More than one has said they felt "transported".  Can any 
music aspire to do more than "transport"?  I think not.    
    I was surprised;  what I had envisioned as a point of debate for us 
tuners,(what does a full comma sound like on a modern concert grand???) turns 
out to be the most captivating passage on the whole recording for people that 
could be our customers!  This tells me that we are all conditioned by our 
environment, but the technicians are conditioned on technical grounds and the 
music lover just might be responding to something less measurable. Something 
emotional.  The tenseness that techs hear in a third which is 8 cents wider 
than "normal"  is unpleasant. We aren't going to get emotional about a 
particular key being so far from "in tune", but the music listener is 
listening for different reasons, and THEY sure seem to be getting something 
attractive out of this.  
     So,  it seems that if we try to assign a value to this width of third, 
we have a paradox.  How can it be so reviled on one side of the audience, and 
so endearing to another. Is it any wonder that temperament debates so often 
seem wildly at odds?   

      I think the value question turns on the definition of meaning, ie, 
"Meaning is the result of a message being received, not a unique property of 
the message, itself".   So, what is the result of this 21 cents?  The same 
wide third carries a different message to the tuner than it does to the music 
listener, and both have very different responses, which indicate what 
"meaning" was created in the individuals. The former has the urge to quash 
the pain, "narrow that sucker down to where we can live with it".  However, 
the listeners often feel an attraction, an inability to listen to anything 
else while it is going on.  Several have mentioned that this is the one piece 
that they stop what they are doing to actively listen to.  I think that is 
good for all of us.   
      That is my goal, to make piano music so attractive that people will 
turn off the phone, or stop dusting the house, or anything else they are 
doing, and make the listening experience the activity of the moment.  Unequal 
tempering is showing  an ability to help in this, so I pursue it and 
encourage others to at least inform themselves and try it.    
    Dave, I know that from our tuning perspective, that section is harsh and 
distracting. However, if you can listen to the entire piece as a whole, you 
may find that Ab's expressiveness, when performing its musico/emotive role 
(setting the stage for the 3rd mvt), might come to have its own charm.  Maybe 
not, I know, but it's worth a shot, huh?? 
(I hate caviar, though some have looked at me like I was crazy for it).
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT 
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
<A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
MP3.com - Six Degrees of Tonality</A>