[Harp-L] again, temperements and Bach

["Jonathan R. Ross" <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Iceman wrote:

>Bach's Well Tempered Klavier was a set of exercise pieces created to
take >advantage of this new development of ET - the pianist was now
totally free >to allow the music of one composition to flow into every
possible key >offered

Again I must point out that there is much debate as to what temperament
Bach used.  Some claim ET, others a well-temperament of some sort.  Try
the following websites for more information (I'm neither agreeing with
nor endorsing them, just showing that the debate is _extremely_ active
and _NOT_ at all settled in academic circles):

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~oneskull/3.6.04.htm

http://www.eunomios.org/contrib/francis1/francis1.html

http://www.gcmusiccenter.org/php/facility/special.features/organ.php#tem
p

http://home.earthlink.net/~kgann/histune.html


The field is active and alive with proposals and theories on what
temperament Bach used and what he intended with "The Well-Tempered
Clavier".  Moreover, the use of 12TET did not become wide-spread till
the extreme chromaticism of the later Romantic period.  This can in part
be seen by looking at the primary instrument of music theory during that
time, the organ.  In the US (a backwater, of course) 12TET became the
basic standard throughout by 1860 with many adherents as early as 1840
(the exception is Tannenberg and the Pennsylvania Germans who used 12TET
in the 1700's after a treatise by Sorge--which was far more influential
amongst them than in Europe).  In Britain, though, it didn't get sway
until even later.  In France and Europe it seems to have really come
into the forefront by the 1850's or so.  Up until that time various
other systems were used, including well-temperaments, meantones and
non-equal circulating temperaments.  So, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and
others would have all worked in a world which was primarily non-ET, and
Handel certainly worked in meantone (probably 1/6th comma).  

Vern says:
>I suppose it depends on how you define "work."

I define "work" by meaning that you can get a musical outcome which you
like and which suits the music in question.

>Hermann Helmholtz in his Book: "On the Sensations of Tone" had this
figured >out 128 years ago. He devoted a 61 page chapter to the subject
of keys and >tuning. He pointed out that 12TET was a compromise but the
only practical >tuning scheme for keyboard and other fixed-interval
instruments:

A single opinion, and one that was quite widely held in his day, but one
with which I and many others disagree.  

>However he did not deny that within a particular key, just tuning made
>better sounding triads.
>
>"But it must not be imagined that the difference between just and equal
>temperament is a mere mathematical subtlety without any practical
value. >That this difference is really very striking even to unmusical
ears is >shown immediately by actual experiments with properly tuned
instruments."

And this shows the limits of Helmholtz' argument.  There is a massive
world of temperament options between a just intonation and an equal
temperament.  Helmholtz was writing against a strawman of his own
creation in order to convince others of his arguments so as to dismiss
all other temperaments than 12TET.  Many music theorists since have
disagreed with him, as did many theorists before (and remember,
Helmholtz was a theorist first, not a significant musician--theory is
nice, but I prefer practical reality when making my musical decisions).


The key is that in all these systems you _CAN_ play in any key, but that
each key will have a different set of characteristics and a different
set of strengths and weaknesses.  As music became increasingly chromatic
(and atonal) in nature with the height of Romanticism 12TET became an
increasingly popular choice because of its even-ness compared to other
schemes.  But that still doesn't make it the only choice.  The early
music revival and the organ reform movement along with the avant-guard
and neo-baroque have brought the question of temperament for fixed-pitch
instruments back to the fore, and those were in their heyday 40 years
ago!  To say that only 12TET makes sense is simply inaccurate, as dozens
of instruments, musicians and performances show daily.  

>Once one strays from the historical consensus of what sounds consonant
and >out into the infinite universe of avant-garde personal taste, then
it is >possible to declare ANYTHING pleasing to the ear.

This "consensus" is nothing of the sort.  Historically, the predominance
of ET is a modern phenomena of the last hundred and fifty years, and one
limited to the Western world.  For the previous three-hundred years of
Western formal music 12TET was known and unused.  For the rest of the
world, it was a non-issue, not being based on Western theory.  For Bach,
Beethoven, Mozart and others 12TET was known, but much of the evidence
says that they chose not to use it.

12TET is _A_ solution to the problem, and a widely popular one.  But it
is not the only one and other solutions are not merely used in a few
dingy sections of the music world.  The revival of interest in hearing
music as close to how the composer would have known them (in terms of
instruments, temperaments and the like) has been a very, very important
theme in classical music circles for the last fifty-plus years, not a
side-bar that just accepts "ANYTHING".  

Moreover, most people who advocate other temperaments than 12TET do so
for the exact reason that they want a solution which is more "pleasing
to the ear" than 12TET (which even Helmholtz admits sounds rough).
Those who can't comprehend the distinction between advocating other
solutions than 12TET often like to raise the boogeyman of "anything"
when in fact the people who raise the issue are usually focused very
precisely on the problem of what is the best compromise for the majority
of music and for the majority of the Western formal tradition.  

I'm not dismissing the importance of 12TET, nor do I dislike it.
Rather, I advocate it in many instances (I cringe when I hear of an
1870's Boston organ being "restored" into anything else, for instance),
but I do so fully cognizant of the limitations inherent within 12TET and
of the benefits and drawbacks of other systems which are neither better
nor worse, just a different set of compromises to an insoluble problem.




 oo    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()()   & Snuffy, too:)
`--'