historical vs. equal temperament

[Douglas Hershberger]

Bill and list,
   I believe the concert tuners for Steinway in the basement in NY use
ET for the best pianists in the world. In some of the greatest concert
venues in the world.Does this mean that because they are playing in ET
pianists such as the late Horowitz played with "diminished sensitivity"?
Or that the worlds greatest pianists who went to the worlds greatest
music conservatories are uninformed about what "keyboard tonality is and
how to work with it"? Bill, are your views about HT the same when it is
a concert situation?
Doug Hershberger,RPT   
   

Billbrpt@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 6/24/98 9:01:54 AM Central Daylight Time,
> dporritt@swbell.net writes:
> 
> << I promote the use of appropriate HTs here and offer to tune them.  I don't
>  really get any takers.  I'm glad I can do this.  Personally, I don't like
>  listening to HTs.  I have heard ET for 59 years, and the others just sound
>  "wrong" to me.  I admit it is just a personal preference not a value
>  judgement.  IMHO ET really is the final improved search for the ideal
>  temperament.
> 
>  I also believe that there are key colors even in absolute ET.  I can't
> explain
>  how, but I hear it.  I've never been one to discount something simply because
> I
>  can't explain it.
> 
>  dave >>
> 
> These are the usual remarks I hear from those who really can and only want to
> tune ET.  Funny how just before I left on my trip last week, a 10 year old
> girl met me at the curb, showed me to the piano and confidently requested 1/7
> comma Meantone by name adding that "...the chords just don't sound right in
> ET".
> 
> Only in Madison, Wisconsin, I suppose but there are those who can "offer" just
> about anything and with the right approach and attitude could literally sell
> ice to an Eskimo.  I have always noticed how those who don't really like the
> HT's always claim that virtually no one wants them.
> 
> Those who hear "key colors" in ET are truly deluding themselves or else what
> they tune is not really ET.  You can't have color on Black and White film.
> Now, there are many photographers who prefer to work in Black & White  (B&W)
> and sometimes they add some "colorization" for effect.  You can only get key
> "colors" or distinction in tonality if you use a tonal temperament such as a
> WT, Meantone or Modified Meantone.  Some of the Quasi-ET's have a slight
> effect like the deliberate colorization of an otherwise B&W photo.
> 
> It is my opinion that those who claim they can hear color in ET really do want
> to hear tonal distinction and so they do.  You can imagine color while looking
> at a B&W image.  You can imagine the color that should be in the music when
> you have ET.  But that's all it is, your imagination.
> 
> Finally, ET is not the "final" development for temperament.  It was known
> throughout the history of Western music of the 16th, 17th, 18th & 19th
> Centuries but consistently rejected specifically because it appealed to
> virtually no one.  Only in the 20th Century has the idea of Equality in
> temperament had any appeal at all. Yet, it has been force-fed to virtually
> everyone by  tuners, scientists and engineers, not by musicians.
> 
> In my opinion, the general public would rarely choose ET if everyone were
> truly well informed about what keyboard tonality is and how to work with it.
> The easiest way to "prove " that an HT "won't work" is to play the piano as if
> it were tuned in ET.  The HT's  demand a sensitive pianist.  ET teaches people
> to play with very diminished sensitivity because there is no need for it.
> Therefore, when the powerful or quiet tonalities of the HT's are played with
> insensitivity,  the music sounds "wrong".
> 
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin