Philippe writes: >Thank you for your very interesting answer... which raises a few questions... ;-) Reading your mail, I'm not sure I understand - as a matter of fact, I'm quite sure I don't(*) - which were the three questions you mentioned, and which of them are answerable or not... This could be caused by my poor english level... Or maybe, you got carried in your own writing, forgetting how you started your reply ? (It happens to me all the time ;-) )<< Greetings, I usually get carried away much later in a posting. The three questions I was referring to were in the following post: >> 1. Did any of you try the Bach/Lehman temperament (http://larips.com) ? I did try the Bach/Lehman temperament. >2. Is it good, Great or just common ? I don't think we can make a valid value judgement as to whether it is good, great, or common. A hammer is a great tool except when you need a scapel. This temperament may be optimum for just a very few pieces of music, or it may be really nice for a wide range. >3. Do you believe it IS the original J.S.Bach's temperament ? etc...< I don't think there is enough info to be definitive inre Bach's tuning. And that is assuming there is such a thing. I don't believe that temperament and tuning were nearly so stringently defined as we do today. The tunings were a perishable, undocumented, ill understood, aspect of musical life in the 1700's. Only a few individuals had the time to pursue such esoteric knowledge. ( The rest of humanity was off being beaten by landlords, trying to avoid a plague, slaving in the fields or mills, carrying on a war, etc.) As far as Bach's temperament is concerned, organs and harpsichords should probably seek authenticity, however, in its display of overtones, the piano is a very different instrument from anything Bach had heard, so the only valid way I know of determining the best tuning for any partiuclar music would be to compare it on several tunings, on similar pianos. This is being done in many places, today, and is the fruition of Jorgensen's efforts decades ago. I suspect there will be some exposure at the convention, two classes I know of, and the possiblility of several incognito tunings among the instruments available to the techs ears. Things don't change very fast in the tuning trade today. From Braid-White to Barber to Jorgensen to all of us standing around with these little blue machines, there has been virtually no change in a long time. It is finally starting to move around a little bit, but ET still carrys on as the blanket deal when we say "tuning". I don't think things were less tradition-influenced in Bach's time. Meantone had just been seriously challenged by Werckmeister's suggestions (1681), and the tuning world was, I imagine, just coming to terms with what is a "good" well temperament. Or, perhaps, "Which of these 'equal' temperaments was the best?" A hundred years later, Thomas Young, genius, (harkening to Vallotti) proposed the ideal formulation of balance, with no pretensions of equality, and In the late 1800's, the best tuners were still creating a bias in their tunings that mimicked it, just to a much lesser degree of contrasts between the keys. Makes me think that this hard-edged ET we have gotten nailed down is a 20th century thing... The various schemes of Bach's day can be compared, today, and only subjective decisions can be made of the results. Taste's being what they are, the "strength" of tempering that best shows Bach will probably always be a point of discussion, but the more important point is that there is a discussion taking place, at all. * that is what I meant by there only being one answerable question. Regards, Ed Foote
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