[CAUT] historic temp thoughts

[Fred Sturm]

On Nov 30, 2009, at 7:38 PM, Israel Stein wrote:

> Monteverdi actually scored for two separate and distinct halves of  
> the orchestra - one with fretted instruments (archlutes, theorbos  
> and such) playing plucked continuo along with a harpsichord and an  
> organ, with viols (fretted) in the string section and lots of lutes  
> and guitars. This half of the orchestra - including the keyboards -  
> was tuned in equal temperament. The other half of the orchestra used  
> harp as the plucked continuo instrument - along with its own organ  
> and harpsichord - and the violin family comprised the string  
> section. This part of the orchestra was tuned in meantone. The two  
> never play together - for obvious reasons.


	This statement didn't ring true to me, so I went to the library and  
browsed a bit. And I found a very different story. The score to Orfeo  
calls for an interesting array of instruments, including an large  
contingent of various continuo instruments, from harpsichord and organ  
to both fretted and unfretted, plucked and bowed string instruments.  
The instruments are listed on the title page (the edition I consulted  
had an actual facsimile) in a disordered way, with no grouping of  
instruments. In the score, in various places, there is an indication  
of the instrumentation for that particular section. The lists of  
instrumentation tend to distinguish between strings and winds, each  
with a continuo contingent. In each case the continuo contingent is  
mixed, with plucked/fretted alongside harpsichord, playing under winds  
or under bowed strings. He specifies, sometimes, where the ensemble  
should be placed (left of stage, right of stage, on stage, etc.)
	I also consulted a couple books, including one dedicated entirely to  
Orfeo. It is clear that there are many decisions to be made by anyone  
putting on this opera. For instance, instrumentation is not specified  
for many of the numbers. But there is no indication whatsoever that  
there were two separate halves of orchestra, one tuned to ET and one  
to MT. Nor that the instrumentation was grouped as described above.
	So I suggest, Israel, that your memory of this event is probably  
faulty - not surprising, since the event you refer to took place 16  
years ago. In any case, I think the notion that
"there is plentiful evidence that when it came to tuning, at least in  
Italy, keyboards yielded to frets rather than the other way around"
is a pretty big stretch. The burden of proof is squarely on you, to  
come up with and present any such plentiful evidence. Perhaps there is  
some. For my part, I have never heard of any.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091201/a9eede84/attachment.htm>