Greetings all,
These are the liner notes from our latest temperament recording. The CD
is "Six Degrees Of Tonality" , and is the second in what we hope to be a
series of temperament recordings. It has a more comparative nature than the
earlier Beethoven recording, and spans a greater period of time. There are
six pieces in six tunings, plus Mozart's Phantasie in Dm perfomed on
Meantone, Well, and Equal temperament.
Yes, I am trying to make a case here, and I certainly enjoy the rigor
that can be found in debate amongst us tuners(Moody, you listening?). That
is one reason that we included three versions of Mozart, so there would be a
direct comparison we can talk about inre the three major styles of tempering.
Some may find that meantone 41 cent third in the passing note a needed
flavor, but it clangs in my brain every time I hear it!
Temperaments are new territory for many, and initial impressions can be
as much of interest as studied responses. I certainly hope that any tech on
the list that found something unbearable would mention it as readily as one
that found a newfound beauty in familiar music. The dialogue is where
progress begins.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT
Six Degrees of Tonality
The Well Tempered Piano
The piano is an untunable instrument. With only12 notes within an
octave , their combinations (intervals) cannot all be perfectly "in tune" at
once. Tuning a note to perfect one interval will spoil others which use that
same note ,thus compromises (tempering) are used to create the maximum
number of usable intervals. These compromises result in a temperament, i.e.
an octave's worth of pitches that produce harmony according to one or another
set of principles.
Of particular interest to pianists is that these principles have changed
during the piano's history, creating different intonational "eras" in
keyboard music. During the past 300 years, pianos have been tuned in three
significantly different styles. This recording surveys the piano's harmonic
evolution via six different temperaments from these eras.
Before 1700, Renaissance and Baroque keyboards were tuned so that some
intervals were very consonant (also called "Just" intervals) and others
totally unusable ("wolf" intervals). With permutations, this tuning lasted
from approximately 1400 to the early1700's and is now known as Meantone
tuning. The wolf intervals limited composers to certain keys, so it was a
"restrictive tuning". Pure harmony is quite expensive from a modulatory
point of view.
Meantone's use on the earliest pianos is likely, but even though it was
used on organs into the 1800's, its dominance faded with the end of the
Baroque era.
Between 1700 and 1900, temperament became non-restrictive, but not
quite "equal". All keys could be used, but some offered more harmony than
others. The importance of modulation in Classical and Romantic keyboard
music proves that temperaments with wolves in them were not in use. What is
becoming obvious today is that keyboard compositions of this era make strong
use of "key color", a quality found in the tunings called now called "Well
Temperaments".
20th Century pianos were tuned almost exclusively in Equal Temperament,
creating a sameness to the keys' tonal characters that is unavailable in any
other tuning. It is this total and democratic allotment of dissonance that
makes Equal Temperament useful as a universal tuning, but at no small cost.
The price of convenience is the loss of historically recognized tonal variety
and contrast known as key color, or "The Character of the Keys".
As the 21st century begins, Equal Temperament is under energetic review.
The source of this examination is a combination of two factors: the
programmable tuning computer for piano technicians and the research of Owen
Jorgensen at Michigan State University.
Research by Jorgensen and others strongly indicates that from 1700
to1900, the age of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, et al, a
style of tuning was in use that was more complex than those which came before
or after. The Well Temperaments of this period differ profoundly from
Meantone or Equal. Not only do they allow full modulation, they create a
predictable variety of consonance and dissonance, providing an acoustical
palette of tonal "colors" for the composer's use.
Keyboard compositions written during this period appear to make use of
harmonic values which do not exist in the other temperaments. The evolving
art of modulation, the development of sonata form with its harmonic rules,
and the known emotional-affective nature of tempering variety, all indicate
the use of a commonly accepted form of well tempered keyboards.
Not only do the Well Temperaments provide tonal contrast, they also
offer a higher degree of consonance than is available in Equal Temperament.
They can, when called upon, be far more "in tune" than today's norm. (By the
same technique, if the composer desires, they can produce sounds as dreary
and tense as a funeral dirge, it all depends on the choice of key).
Temperament thus forms the keyboard's intonation, and that it has changed
so profoundly has strong implications for musicians and audiences who seek
the fullest expression of a composer's work. Substitution of a different
intonation will necessarily change any composer's harmonic organization, and
it is reasonable to expect music performed in non-original temperament to
lose something of the composers intention.
In Classical and Romantic repertoire, this loss translates into reduced
emotional impact of the music itself, for without tonal variety, contrast
between the purer intervals (with their sedative effects) and highly tempered
ones (with their more stimulative results) doesn't occur. The result is that
important emotion-control circuitry, apparently built into the music
originally, is left unplugged.
Where did this "circuitry" come from? In 1681, a German theorist,
Andreas Werckmeister, published tuning rules that eliminated the
restrictions of Meantone. By tempering the once-sacrosanct thirds and
spreading the dissonance of the wolf over more intervals, none were tempered
past an acceptable level and modulation throughout the scale was possible.
In Werckmeister's temperament, the keys used most often were spared
most of the dissonance, while the rarely used keys absorbed more. This
variety was not random, the rise and fall of dissonance follows the circle
of fifths from the home key of C. As one modulates farther from "home",
harmony becomes more "expressive", i.e. the more accidentals in the key
signature, the more dissonance or "color" there will be in the tonic thirds
of that key.
The differences among the Well Temperaments are in how evenly the
tempering changes from one key to the next and how much contrast between keys
is allowed, but the overall form of the genre is near constant. Thus, the
two distinguishing features of a Well Temperament are the lack of wolves and
the predictable variety of dissonance, or "color", in the keys.
The shaping of harmonic variety on the keyboards was refined over the
following 200 years, before becoming a moot point with the acceptance of
Equal Temperament. There is debate as to when Equal Temperament became
widespread, with estimates ranging from 1850 to 1900. There is no definitive
answer, but there is much evidence that widespread use of Equal Temperament
is a 20th century phenomenom, and scant support to indicate that it was even
possible before 1850.
Debated for thousands of years, temperament is an arcane subject
to most musicians today. This may be due to 20th century use of Equal
Temperament. With equal harmony and dissonance everywhere in the scale,
there is little to debate about different keys' characters. As a result,
most modern ears have become accustomed to an ever-present, mild dissonance
in keyboard harmony, never hearing a harsh third or a pure one, either.
This recording uses four tunings from the Well Tempered era and two from
its "boundaries". The first, (Meantone for Scarlatti) demonstrates how a
composer could avoid the wolf and enjoy pure thirds. The last (Coleman 11)
was written in 1998 and idealizes a Victorian approach to temperament,
closely resembling the "equal" temperaments used at the Broadwood Piano
factory in 1885. In between are the variations. The use of the Kirnberger
and Young were widely documented in their time, while the DeMorgan is a
radical departure from the normal order.
Temperaments are new territory for 20th century ears. The first-time
listener may find it shocking to hear the harmony change "color" during
modulations or too subtle to immediately notice. Many notice the increased
clarity that comes from less dissonance. Some passages are '
edgier" than usual while others offer previously unheard, consonant harmony.
Like the calm and the storm, it is contrast between these values that helps
increase the emotional attraction of the listening experience. This is the
true shape of tonality.
Appreciating this tonal perspective is an easily learned skill and
yields powerful rewards. A second listening is usually all that is required
to begin recognizing newly restored harmonic textures in old, familiar music.
Once discerned, the well-tempered, tonal colors of the piano's earlier days
create a new acoustical vista for the listener, a soundscape in which the
intellectual, sensual, and emotional intentions of the composers are allowed
their maximum expression.
Enjoy,
Ed
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