(careful, it is about temperaments)

[Dean May]

I remember a year or so ago someone posted links to a web site that
proposed a "better" well temperament. The site had a variety of recorded
piano segments with differing temperaments so you could hear the
difference. I just spent all afternoon going through archives and have
been unable to find it. Can anyone help?

Dean
Dean May             cell 812.239.3359
PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272
Terre Haute IN  47802


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of David Love
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 5:29 PM
To: 'Pianotech'
Subject: RE: (careful, it is about temperaments)

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


_______________________________________________
pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives