Seeing that what I claim about keyboards, tuning, and maintenance on my authority—whether or not acknowledging it as such guesswork—now may or may not be true according to better authority, it is a good time for me to make assertions yet on the authority of even others that will bolster some of my firmer convictions stated, authorities that cannot be disputed in the CAUT environment or on the CAUT list, by anyone.
Donald J. Grout, professor emeritus at Cornell, and Claude V. Palisca, then professor of music at Yale, and perhaps now, completed the fourth edition for A History of Western Music in 1988, though it is indicated on the dust jacket that Palisca is most responsible for this edition. Perhaps a later edition has appeared. The work is an almost draconian influence in the conservatory understanding of music history in the English speaking world. It does not prove silent on tuning in the development of Western music. It states this in chapter six, “The Age of the Renaissance,”
TUNING SYSTEMS The search for new tuning systems was stimulated not only by a desire for sweeter consonance but also by the expansion of tonal resources beyond the diatonic modes to the notes of the chromatic scale. Improvised musica ficta called upon a limited number of accidentals—mainly F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, B flat, and E flat—but as composers sought to achieve new expressive effects they began exploring cycles of fifths that led them to recognize even such notes as C sharp and B double flat. “Ficta” scales patterned on the convential [sic] gamut were contrived to accommodate these notes. In the Pythagorean tuning systems in use in the fifteenth century, however, a sharped note and its corresponding flatted note, such as C sharp and D flat, were not the same. This led to the development of duplicate keys on organs and harpsichords. Nicola Vicentino gained notoriety for inventing a harpsichord with three keyboards that could play in the chromatic and enharmonic as well as the diatonic genera. He claimed thereby to have recaptured the powers of the ancient Greek genera…
“Renaissance” means “rebirth” in French, in which language it was first used by the historian Jules Michelet in 1855 as a subtitle of a volume of his Histoire de France. It was subsequently adopted by historians of culture, particularly of art, and eventually of music, to designate a period of history.[1]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftn1>
Palisca and Grout claim that renaissance music represented not only a chronological stage in the development of Western music, but a return to the humanistic values inherent in the Greek understanding of the arts, an embracing of “human as opposed to spiritual values,” a deviation from the skepticism church modes inflicted upon “the full range of human emotions” and hatred of “the pleasures of the senses” we find that chromaticism, instead, sublimates. However, these prejudices against the human aspects of life opposed to the salvific understanding of life after death lasted well into Handel’s time, when his Messiah shocked an English speaking public who did not find the Oratorio suitable for sacred music.
From this, is it reasonable to conclude that even the Hellenists themselves had knowledge of something approaching equal temperament?
Grout returns to the subject of tuning when discussing “Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque,” and makes the following assertion about it:
EQUAL TEMPERAMENT Although preludes and fugues were of obvious service in the church, they also became vehicles for training in composition and performance. A compilation of such pieces was Ariadne musica of 1715, a collection of keyboard preludes and fugues in nineteen different major and minor keys by J. K. F. Fischer ca. 1665-1746. This was neither the first nor the most complete tour around the keys. As early as 1567 the lutenist Giacomo Gorzanis had compiled a cycle of twenty-four passamezzo-salterello pairs, one in each of the major and minor keys, and Vincenzo Galilei left a manuscript dated 1584, also for lute, of twelve passamezzo antico-romanesca-saltarello sets in each of the major keys. The lute was a natural instrument for such cycles, because its frets were spaced such that there were twelve equal semitones in the octave.
Keyboard players were reluctant to give up the sweeter imperfect consonances and truer perfect consonances possible in nonequal divisions of the octave. Keyboard composers of the early fifteenth century exploited the pure fifths and fourths of the Pythagorean tuning, in which the major thirds were uncomfortable large and the minor thirds were excessively small. When simultaneities combining fifths and thirds, or third and sixths became common in the later fifteenth century, keyboard players began to compromise the tuning of the fifths and fourths to get better thirds and sixths.
So Grout and Palisca, perhaps the most important historians of Western Music in the English speaking world at present, date the contraction of the fifth and the expansion of the fourth for the sake of the third and sixth, as occurring in the 1400’s.
They continue:
The favorite way to accomplish this was called meantone temperament, resulted in a “wolf” or very rough fifth, usually between C sharp and A flat or between G sharp and E flat. Neither playing in every possible key nor modulation through the entire cycle of fifths could be accomplished with even results. Equal temperament, in which all semitones are equal, and all intervals are less than true but acceptable, was the solution proposed as early as the sixteenth century and eventually embraced by many keyboard players, composers, and organ builders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [2]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftn2>
Hence, the expectation of the musicians we work with would be to date the inception of equal temperament as something happening in the 1500’s. Anything else would be an anomaly, unless one fancies him or herself a greater authority than Grout and Palisca.
A less prominent work in the English-speaking world of music curriculum that elaborates about tuning is the first and perhaps most definitive biography of J.S. Bach, originally written in German, the revealing Johann Sebastian Bach; His Life, Art, and Work by Johann Nikolaus Forkel. As I had stated before on my own authority, and now repeat on better authority, limitations of the instruments themselves led to constraints in tuning that any theoretical understanding of equal temperament could not supervene:
Besides these improvements, Bach invented a new system of fingering. Before his time, and even in his early years, it was usual for the player to pay attention to harmony rather than counterpoint. Even so it was not customary to use every one of the twenty-four major and minor keys. The Clavichord was still what we term ‘gebunden’; that is, several keys struck the same string, which, therefore, could not be accurately tuned. Consequently it was usual to employ only those keys whose notes were tuned with some approximation to accuracy… But when Bach began to melodize harmony… he began to deviate from the Church modes then in general vogue in secular music, using diatonic and chromatic scales indifferently, and tuning the Clavier for all the twenty-four keys, he found himself compelled to introduce a system of fingering better adapted to his innovations than that in use, and in particular, to challenge the convention which condemned the thumb to inactivity.[3]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftn3>
As I stated before, the developments that took place in tuning keyboards entirely were based upon the limitations of the instrument, and to some degree, technique; innovations in the keyboard design were responded to immediately by musicians in the manner it was tuned. With the development of a clavichord into an instrument with separate strings for every note during Bach’s time, Bach immediately tuned for all keys. It did not require R & D. Knowledge of equal temperament was not the problem, but instead the instrument itself barred the composer and performer from being able to tune it. We have a similar problem today with Spinets, though still Nichtgebunden. Another peculiarity in the development of an applied equal temperament we do not mark involves these modifications in fingering to include the thumb, as that the sharp keys did make integration with the thumb easier in keyboard playing. So to quell any doubt as to just how Bach tuned:
No one could adjust the quill plectrums of his Harpsichord to Bach’s satisfaction: he always did it himself. He tuned his Harpsichord and Clavichord, and was so skillful in the operation that it never took him more than a quarter of an hour. It enabled him to play in any key he preferred, and placed the whole twenty-four of them at his disposal, so that he could modulate into the remoter as easily and naturally as into the more related keys…[4]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftn4>
Grout and Palisca identify the ambiguity with whether or not this was equal temperament:
The title J. S. Bach gave to his first set of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys, Das wohltemperirte Clavier (the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, 1722) suggests that he had in mind equal temperament. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that “well-tempered” can mean good or nearly equal temperament, as well as truly equal temperament…[5]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftn5>
The question about whether or not this was equal temperament is a non sequitur. Instruments simply were tuned well as possible, soon as they were invented. That is what is meant by well, not well as contrary to equal. Not until Bach’s time could the clavichord be tuned for all keys.
The main reason to deviate from equal temperament is not to identify with the historical period of the music being played, however mislead we may be in our conclusions about the tuning of that era, but to make the tuning of the keyboard sound well as possible, and as explained before, it is possible to conclude that equal temperament will prevent this.
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[1]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftnref1> Grout, D., Palisca, C. A History of Western Music, Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1988 first edition 1960 pp. 204, 205
[2]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftnref2> Ibid, p. 449
[3]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftnref3> Forkel, J. N. Johann Sebastian Bach; His Life, Art, and Work; translated by Charles Sanford Terry. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Howe 1920 or. 1802 pp. 54, 55
[4]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftnref4> Ibid, p. 59
[5]<https://ucmail.uc.edu/owa/?ae=Item&a=New&t=IPM.Note#_ftnref5> Grout, D., Palisca, C. A History of Western Music, Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1988 first edition 1960 pp. 449, 450
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