[CAUT] using as ETD

[Fred Sturm]

On Apr 17, 2010, at 12:33 PM, Ed Foote wrote:

>        As one pianist familiar with the WT's said, "One can decide  
> whether the tempering is to be played harshly or expressively".

Hmm, then it is the way the pianist plays the interval that makes the  
tempering "harsh or expressive?" Sounds like a bit of a circular  
argument to me.

> High tempering affects technicians differently than it does music  
> lovers.
> I don't hear it as harsh, anymore.

	If you don't hear it as harsh, then the argument about WT making  
music sound more consonant seems to lose its force. Again, I would  
argue that it isn't a question of more or less dissonance, but one of  
a varied contour compared with a level contour.

>       The only way that a WT will cause as much overall dissonance  
> as ET is if all 24 keys are used the same amount, and that does not  
> happen in Western literature.  There is only a certain amount of  
> dissonance to be had.   If it is spread equally, you will hear more  
> dissonance in most piano music because in the entire amount of music  
> composed between 1700 and 1900, there is a lot less remote key usage  
> and a lot more diatonic.

	Well, Chopin is certainly one exception, as are Schubert and Schumann  
and many others. I'd say more of Chopin has three or more sharps or  
flats than has less (I haven't counted his whole output, but I've  
glanced at a good portion of it for a rapid estimate. 18 of 27 etudes,  
for instance. 15 of 27 have four or more sharps or flats).

>   In this repertoire, any well temperament or tuning that even  
> shares the form, will cause there to be less total dissonance than  
> in ET.  Yes, there will be points of higher tempering than the 14  
> cents, and oddly enough, it seems that composers made the higher  
> tension musically useful.  "Expression" I think is the term.

	Perhaps some composers of the 19th century were thinking of variance  
in third size when composing, but I have yet to see any concrete  
evidence that this was true (How about a composer actually saying he  
did this, and how he did it? Out of all the hundreds of composers,  
some of whom wrote quite a few words about how they wrote, or how  
others should write, not a hint). I suppose you will make the "key  
color" argument, which is a rather effervescent one. Lots of writers  
about music wrote about key color affects. Interestingly, there was a  
lot of variety in how they described the attributes of the various  
keys for quite a while (mostly pre-1800), and at some point everyone  
seemed to start plagiarizing a particular writer by the name of  
Schubart. But this was writers about music, not composers, or at least  
not major composers. Only a very few make any mention of key  
characteristics. Beethoven made one attested quote that has been  
trumpeted as "proof that this was so," but really this is a tangled  
web with little real concrete substance to hold onto. (BTW, Rita  
Steblin published a revised edition of her book A History of Key  
Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries in 2002, where  
she compiled what is probably close to all the published material on  
the subject).
	One can dig up examples to "prove" something or other that one is  
looking for, but I'm skeptical that this holds up when you take a more  
dispassionate look. Take Chopin for instance. Look at the Etudes in  
Gflat major, Op 10 #5 and Op 25 #9. Predict what character they will  
have, based on the rules of key characteristics. (Schubart said of F#  
major "Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief uttered when  
hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled  
and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.") Then listen to  
the music. Seems like what I would expect in G major, based on what  
key color would predict. These are very bright, cheery pieces, not an  
echo of the struggles of the soul that I can detect. How did he use  
the extra dissonance "expressively?" My point being that one can pick  
and choose examples and "prove" any number of things.

Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
"I am only interested in music that is better than it can be played."  
Schnabel

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