Benjamin,
Is English not your first language? Asides from the heading of your
message being German (unbound? the connection with your long post seems
a bit tenuous), your writing syntax indicates that English has perhaps
been recently learned. Is this correct?
Don Mannino
_____
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 3:00 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Nichtgebunden
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.
_____
[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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090424/17155ac0/attachment-0001.html>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC