Jorgensen vs Isacoff

[Charles Neuman]

I'm surprised nobody has commented yet on the recent Journal book review
on Isacoff's book.

Here are some of my thoughts:

My only complaint about Jorgensen is that he uses a strict definition of
ET and then applies it to other people's use of the term. It's fine for
him to define ET as being good enough to pass the RPT tests, but I don't
think it's fair for him to call someone "wrong" for using the term ET in a
more general sense. In fact, Jorgensen could use his definition of ET and
conclude that ET is not widely used in the world today because there is
not a vast majority of tuners who can pass the RPT exams. Obviously, if
he made that argument then "ET" would mean something different for him
than it does most people who tune ET.

On the other hand, Isacoff seems to be reckless with the term "equal
temperament", and I think he really means "non-restrictive temperament
such that it wouldn't sound out of tune to an average listener". If he
said that he defined "equal temperament" that way, then I don't think
there would be much to argue about with his arguments. For example, he
doesn't care whether it was possible to tune ET in Bach's time. His
comment that "psychologically, Bach had accepted the idea of equality
between all the keys" is really more about the movement towards less
restrictive temperaments than it is about the actual tuning of a
temperament. He says that ET was a "philosophical ideal" at a certain
point in history. Again, I think that's a comment about how temperaments
became less an less restrictive over time, and it doesn't indicate that
Isacoff is part of a conspiracy to eliminate key color. When he says that
"Beethoven and Schubert, Liszt, and Chopin continued to dissolve the
limits of musical form, producing art that would not have been possible
with any other tuning [than ET]", he can't mean that you can only play
Beethoven in ET. That would be ridiculous. Again, I think he's using a
loose definition of "ET", and he's saying that the art produced in the
19th century would not have been possible with a very restrictive
temperament.

Regarding key color, I don't think Isacoff really knows much about it. He
says, "Admittedly, I have had only a few opportunities to hear music
performed in a well temperament. However, that experience taught me that
in remote keys, such a tuning can become quite rough." Clearly he has a
lot to learn about the subtleties of key color. But he doesn't care about
that, because for him, either a temperament has enough key color such that
an average listener would notice it, or it's considered in his general
definition of "ET".

This is all based on the Journal book review. I haven't actually read
Isacoff's book.

My two cents,

Charles Neuman