[CAUT] ET vs UET

[David Ilvedson]

Explain a little further.   A monochord with the ET divisions marked below.   You touched a spot on the string to produce a tone in ET...in theory

David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA  94044

----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "Ed  Sutton" <ed440 at mindspring.com>
To: caut at ptg.org
Received: 4/20/2010 12:52:47 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET


>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