Ed, Bill & List, With a little help from a few of my cyber tuner friends, I decided to "get my feet wet" with Historical Tuning. On July 3, the chairman of our piano department, Nancy Weems, is going to play the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major with our Texas Music Festival Orchestra. With only one composer represented, 2 B's in her studio and 2 D's in the performance hall to use for practice (her and me), I decided to go for it, as they say. Being an educational institution, this seems the perfect place to try it and the students need to be exposed to it as part of their education. The teacher was at first reluctant because she's had no experience or exposure to HT's at all. So over the last few weeks since I originally mentioned the possibility of doing it, I've been quoting positive comments I've seen on the list, primarily about the colors, interpretation differences, shading, etc., trying to gradually win her over enough to try it. Last Monday, I put Young's Well-temperament #1 from the SAT manual on one of her studio pianos. She didn't know when I was going to do it, but I ran into her as I was leaving that day and told her what I'd done. So the last 3-4 days she's been playing with it. Late this morning, I had a message on my phone from her saying: "I just wanted to let you know that it's, uh, well, it's COOOOL! I like it. (A little chuckle here.) And you're right, the chords blend differently, the different tonalities *do* have different colors as you go through the transitions. And it isn't all *that* different, so that there's anything that would throw me off. So, I guess it's a go." You get the idea. She's reasonably young, very personable and easy to get along with, so I was hoping she'd come through. She did. So this time it looks as though it's smooth sailing for the rest of it. The only unknown right now is the conductor, Carl St. Clair, who is the Music Director for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. Anyone ever worked with him? I know he's guest conducted the N.Y Philharmonic L.A. Phil. as well as major orchestras such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Houston, Minnesota and Vancouver, among others. I've been told that he's very open to new things and current trends, so I'm not expecting any problem. Two questions I'd like to ask those of you with experience doing this in orchestral situations. Pertaining to intonation, I've read that singers and string players tend to gravitate away from ET anyway, left to their own devices. What about wind players? Do they also? Is it harder for them to adjust to an HT than it would be for string players? Wouldn't their instruments be designed and built to play in ET? The second question is informing people about it. Especially the audience at the concert. Should anything at all be said about it? The programs have long since been printed, so it would have to be as an insert. The other alternative is for the conductor, me, or whoever to say something very short about HT's, either at the beginning of the concert or right before the piece is played. (Boy, I'm sure glad I have Ed's CD liner notes!!!!!) :-) The opening piece is also by Mozart: Overture to 'The Impresario'. Thanks for wading through all this (those of you who did :-) ). Any comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome. Avery P.S. As if I don't have enough to do already, I have to go and add HT"s to the list. :-) ___________________________ Avery Todd, RPT Moores School of Music University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-4893 713-743-3226 atodd@uh.edu http://www.music.uh.edu/
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