[CAUT] ET vs UET

[Ed Sutton]

Laurence-

You may recall our correspondence about Bootman's Piano-Forte Tuning Scale, a monochord sold in New York in the 1860's. It is scaled in ET, as is Roller and Blanchet's device (Paris, 1820's). Whether or not these gadgets worked, they are scaled in ET, not some other temperament. They speak unambiguously of their makers' intentions. 

My copy of Bootman's advertising flier states "....All tuners try to obtain an equal temperament, but only a few, who have constant practice and a perfect ear succeed, while with this scale all can obtain it more perfectly than can be done by the ear alone...." It is endorsed by William Mason, Gottschalk and Steinway and Sons. Steinway calls it "the best of its kind," so one wonders what other tuning devices were available in the mid-19th century.

They are listed as sold by eight music merchants in New York, Buffalo and Chicago.

I have two of these devices, one in working condition, both purchased on eBay in recent years, so I don't suppose they were rarities.

Ed Sutton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Laurence Libin 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:32 AM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET


  I didn't know England still had split key square pianos in the first half of the 19th century; were they produced commercially or only for demonstration? Does one survive? I'm aware only of Zumpe's from 1766 or thereabouts. Incidentally It appears that David Tannenberg, following Sorge, introduced ET to America in the 1760s, but his 1761 clavichord was apparently scaled differently. Anyway, is it safe to assume that when Mozart and Haydn and Mendelssohn played in London, their pianos were not in ET? And that Continental piano music distributed in Britain before, say, 1830, was normally played there in temperaments other than what the composers anticipated? If so, what did Clementi, Dussek, Moscheles, John Field and the rest of the prolific London piano school think about this, if anything? Regardless of composers' preferences (I doubt most cared), it would seem that a lot of piano music played in Britain before about 1840 wasn't heard in ET. And I'd bet, though it can't be proven or disproven, that the same was true on the Continent, no matter what tuning instructors and theorists advised. As for Steinway, it would be fun to test the temperament of the extant Steinway reed organ for whatever light it might shine on the question.
  Laurence   
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Fred Sturm 
    To: caut at ptg.org 
    Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 10:51 PM
    Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET was RE: using as ETD


    On Apr 19, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Laurence Libin wrote:


      Thank you for your patience in responding. I've been editing Patrizio Barbieri's work for Grove, so when we have time I'll ask him about all this.
      Laurence


    I'm delighted Barbieri is writing for Groves. He'll be a great asset. I hope some of his writing for you is on tuning subjects. 
    I'm going to expound a bit on the reason for considering England so much separate from the continent in matters of temperament, to clarify what is, on the surface, rather surprising. It has a great deal of bearing on why there is so much confusion and misinformation concerning 19th century temperament history among piano technicians and others in the US (and to a lesser extent in other parts of the world). 
    Jorgensen did considerable digging in England, unearthing documents and analyzing them, in his attempt to get at what tuners were really doing during that period, as opposed to what theoreticians might have been saying. He assumed that England would be representative of what was going on in the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, he was badly mistaken in this assumption.
    To understand this, we have to look at the 18th century in continental Europe and in England. In Germany, circular temperaments were overwhelmingly predominant from the very beginning of the century, with mean tone very much on the fringes (Silbermann was the only important advocate of MT, for 1/6 comma, and he was pretty exceptional in this regard). Equal temperament was one of the circulating temperaments, also from the very beginning of the century, instigated by Werckmeister, with successive champions in Neidhardt, Sorge and Marpurg during the first half of the century. Germans knew very well what equal temperament was, and they knew it in comparison with circulating temperaments that were relatively mild.
    In France, modified mean tone of the "French Ordinaire" pattern was dominant throughout the century, again a circulating temperament, though not as mild as the German ones. Mean tone was very much in the background, though not so absent as in Germany. And equal temperament was known about and talked about due to Rameau's advocacy (from 1837 on), though not much put to use. The French also had a very good notion of what equal temperament was, in contrast to their particular style of circulating temperament.
    In England, the story was completely different. There was nearly no mention of any circulating temperament at all during the 18th century, and the dominant tuning method was mean tone, mostly of the 1/6 - 1/5 comma variety. What  controversy there was centered on whether 1/4 comma (or various other fractional commas) might be better.
    So when we come to 1800 (as a nice round boundary date), and the English are hearing more and more about equal temperament, and hearing for themselves that mean tone doesn't work well with the new music being imported from Germany, they really don't know what the term ET means. Their notion is that it is simply any tuning in which all keys can be used. As a result, we have Broadwood announcing proudly to the world in 1811 (I believe, or thereabouts) that his firm had adopted the modern tuning method preferred by the best composers, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: equal temperament. He was mistaken. Whether he was mistaken about the preferences of the composers is a separate issue, but he was certainly mistaken in his claim that his firm had adopted ET. In fact, he probably didn't know what ET was, and assumed it simply meant a tuning that could be used in all keys, a circular temperament. The consensus seems to be that the tuning used at Broadwood during this time was a "semi-mean tone" - a tuning where the naturals are tuned in mean tone, and the accidentals are tuned so as to be midway between them. That is the intent, anyway, though there is no convenient way to accomplish this aurally (there are monochords for the purpose, but no aural instructions seem to have survived). Probably it was done "seat of the pants," with "varied results."
    Other circulating temperaments made their way to England as time passed. Kirnberger II came to the attention of the Earl of Stanhope about 30 years after it was first published. French Ordinaire was espoused by Jean Jousse in the 1830s. And when 1840 came, Broadwood hired A. J. Hipkins to teach their tuners to do ET. Apparently that was necessary: I would assume that Broadwood, being, like Steinway today, a firm in touch with touring virtuosi, had complaints about the tuning quality and took measures. It seems likely that this was the first serious attempt to teach English tuners how to accomplish ET, and it would obviously take some time for this to percolate around the city of London, let alone the whole country.
    Emblematic of the attitude of the English to ET, and their continued attachment to MT, is the proliferation of enharmonic instruments, particularly harmoniums capable of extending MT or just intonation. Some had 51 or 53 notes per octave. This is something that did not take root elsewhere on the continent, another indication of how different England was. The "craze" in this regard took place in the second half of the 19th century (though there were extended mean tone inventions for harpsichord and for acoustic grand piano, as well as split key square pianos, during the first half of the century).
    So Jorgensen found that the evidence showed the English were tuning any number of ways differently from ET during the time when main stream scholars claimed ET was dominant. He found no evidence of reliable ET instructions until late in the century. And he assumed that he had discovered that the truth was that ET actually wasn't practiced during the 19th century. All this because his research centered on England, and because he assumed England was representative.
    Sorry to have gone on so long, but it takes a bit of telling to make this clear. This is the reason so many people believe what they believe, in contrast to what I, for one, take to be the facts. My opinions are in line with those of most serious scholars, including Barbieri. Jorgensen's work needs to be seen in the light of what I have set out briefly above. There will be further details forthcoming in the series of articles I have written, which will run starting in May in the PT Journal.

    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    fssturm at unm.edu
    "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Twain

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