Square Grand/HT Temperaments

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Greetings, 
<<On modern grands, fourths tuned to a 1/4  comma sound bad! 

Umm, well, yes, depending on what is being played.  
    A piano tuned in 1/4 C offered unacceptable amounts of dissonance to my 
clientele, though some jazzers found the comma useful as a motif in some 
impromtu extemporizing. Even though the busy fifths are noticeable, it was 
those 41 cent dim4ths that set everyone free!  I am assured that the 13th and 
14 century music depended on some terrifically tempered intervals(by our 
modern standards), and their contrast witht the Just purity of others.  
  Perhaps ET represents the end of the line for intonation's evolution.  Many 
of the cutting-edge composers I have been reading of are involved in ET, but 
of the 19ET and 53ET, plus the NbasedETs.  Equality in such fine divisions of 
the octave allows intervals that can mimic all the widths available in the 
WT's , however, keyboard instruments are not easily built to such specs, and 
it is the synthesizers that are capable of this sort of intonation.  
   The modern piano may not gracefully admit the meantone tunings, but there 
has been a huge response to non-ET tunings that create much less contrast. 
>From the noviate's perspective, there is more difference between ET and the 
late 19th century "Broadwood"  than between that Broadwood tuning and any of 
the other WT's. 
   Even a little departure from strict, clinical, mathematically exact ET 
produces strong reactions from musicians. I think there is rarely a need to 
go all the way to 1/4 Comma.     
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT