I find these two points to be at odds and reflective of a tendency, in these treatises, toward a sort of pianocentrism in explaining the choice of keys. Of the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven only 2 are in the key of C and most fall in the 2, 3 and 4 sharps and flats category. Only one piece is in 6 sharps and none are in either 5 flats or 5 sharps. You would think that if temperament were dictating choice of keys that there would be a greater dispersion. Interestingly, the width of the tonic major third in the keys with 2, 3 and 4 sharps or flats (where most of the pieces are written) falls very close to the width of the third in ET. The assumption is also that it was the nature of the sound of the "piano" or like tempered instrument that guided compositional key choices. It is well known that many if not most of these composers did there work away from the keyboard. Mozart speaks at length about being guided by vocal music where intervals are much closer to just than the expanded intervals of a temperament. Likewise, Beethoven seems to have thought of his piano music in orchestral terms where the tempered scale again has little meaning. Much of Schuberts music was written without the benefit of a piano because he couldn't afford one and are similarly orchestral in structure. It's quite easy to construct an after the fact interpretation of key selection based on subjective viewpoints about contrasting sounds. I just don't think the evidence really supports the claims. The selection of key, I would suggest, was a response to WT's only in the sense that the self limiting choices of keys with relatively few sharps and flats were an attempt, consciously or not, to not drift too far from what ET eventually offered. I have no more hard evidence to support that claim but it is no less arguable. And if we are going to use empirical evidence, while there are a few concert level musicians who argue for the use of WT's for a musical and historically accurate interpretation of 18th and 19th music, there are many more, if not nearly all, who, not inclined to sacrifice musicality or historical faithfulness, choose to play the music in ET. David Love davidlovepianos@comcast.net -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of A440A@aol.com Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 8:37 AM To: pianotech@ptg.org Subject: Re: (careful, it is about temperaments) However, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and otheres of their day certainly did not use the remote keys nearly as much as they did ones with less dissonance. Anybody care to offer an explanation of why composers chose the keys that they did, if not differences in temperament? (Rita Steblin's book should be required reading for all tuners). Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html _______________________________________________ pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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