(careful, it is about temperaments)

[David Love]

I think you have gone a bit far afield.  Nobody is arguing the "correctness"
of using WT or not.  The issue is whether or not the music must be heard in
WT to capture the intent of the composer.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Israel Stein
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:30 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: (careful, it is about temperaments)

Before we get too far afield into obsolete ideas...

It is interesting to note that notion of "authenticity" has lately 
pretty much fallen into disgrace even in the Historically Informed 
Performance (formerly known as Early Music) field. There is a tacit 
acknowledgement that the idea of exact fidelity to the notions and 
practices of the time in which the music was written is both 
impossible and in many ways undesirable. After all, there is no way 
we can hear the music as played by Beethoven and Mozart. On the other 
hand, we do not wish to duplicate the very low technical and musical 
standards of the time - poorly maintained instruments,  poorly 
trained and under-rehearsed musicians, small, darkly lit 
venues...  Today's musicians and audiences are, after all, steeped in 
today's musical values and today's musical standards, and there is so 
much any of them are willing to accept or learn to appreciate of past 
practices - and that also applies to temperaments.

Any notion of "authenticity" as applied to performance of Classical 
era music on the modern piano is patently ridiculous - anyone 
familiar with pianos of that era can attest to the fact that they are 
very, very different musical instruments, both lacking many of the 
capabilities of the modern instruments (in terms of sonority and 
dynamic range) and having some that the modern instrument lost (in 
terms of color, register differences, clarity/transparency, 
articulation and velocity). Just the tremendous increase in 
inharmonicity from the older instrument to the newer one makes any 
comparison between WT on the Beethoven era Streicher and WT on a 
Steinway pretty much apples and oranges...

In terms of historicity, we have two conflicting considerations here. 
The music was written in the era of the older temperaments, but the 
rise of the modern, high-tension piano is pretty much contemporaneous 
with the adoption of the Equal Temperament. So which is more 
"historically correct" - fidelity to the composer's practices (who 
used different instruments) or fidelity to today's instrument's 
historical niche? Which is why the "authenticity" argument leads nowhere.

So where does that leave us? Basically, where the Historically 
Informed Performance stream of music now hangs its hat. There is an 
acceptance of the notion that no single way of performing music is 
"correct" - music is a living, changing thing, and every performance 
and performer brings something to it, no matter what degree of 
historical "fidelity" they try to adhere to - including all the 
baggage from the musical practices of the  intervening centuries. 
Audiences are subject to the same baggage... Therefore:

The use of earlier temperaments on the modern piano is neither right 
nor wrong - it simply is an additional tool in the arsenal of the 
musician, an additional dimension of the music to be explored and 
adopted to the extent that it can find an audience. The same way as 
the use of early instruments (or replicas) and historical notions 
about ornamentation, vocal technique, dynamics, vibrato and other 
performance techniques have found an audience. (And the insights 
gleaned from these historically based musical practices have come to 
influence the "mainstream" music field - through the medium of such 
musicians as Paul Badura-Skoda and Peter Serkin (on piano), Roger 
Norrington and John Elliott Gardner (orchestrally) or the many fine 
vocalists and instrumentalists who today perform in both fields...)

>One thing to consider in all this (and I've probably exhausted my thoughts)
>is what the major pianist/scholars are doing in this respect.  Pianists
like
>Brendl, Schnabel, Perahia, and most of not virtually all others who pour
>over original source material, biographies, writings, documents in order to
>glean that small little detail that adds to their commitment to a more
>authentic interpretation of the music as conceived by the composer.  Of all
>these people it seems (and I say this with the caveat that I have not
>actually done the research) that most if not all of them, when choosing to
>record/perform, opt for ET.

Any performing musician who does historical research will adopt those 
practices that suit his or her preferences, and reject others. So I 
am not impressed. Besides, it is impossible to tell whether or not 
Brendel, Schnabel or Perahia ever were aware of the temperament issue 
- in mainstream musical circles the notion that Well temperament and 
Equal temperament are one and the same held sway well into the late 
20th century, and many very fine musicians still don't know the 
difference - temperament just isn't on their radar screen. Intonation 
issues in general are of little interest to pianists - they don't 
deal with intonation, we do it for them, so many never really develop 
an ear for it...

>While there may be a few who, to their credit,
>are exploring these pieces in the temperaments of the times, they are a
>stark minority.  To suggest that the leading interpreters of classical
music
>of the last century take such pains for authenticity while rejecting the,
we
>assume, prevailing tuning style of the times forces you to the conclusion
>that they either consciously chose to reject it because it wasn't in their
>view relevant to the music and authentic interpretation, or that they
>are/were ignorant, biased or, as Bremmer suggests, did it for some strange
>business reason.  Considering the extent to which they research these
issues
>and their apparent commitment to the original intent of the composers leads
>me to the conclusion that the tuning style was rejected consciously and
that
>it was not relevant, in their view, to an authentic and musical
>interpretation.  Who am I to argue?  If there is real evidence to the
>contrary, I'm open to hearing it.

There is no way of knowing who heard or used what temperament when 
and if they even stuck to one or another - or just slop-tuned their 
piano until it sounded "OK". Jason's wonderful website 
notwithstanding, please keep in mind that published temperaments are 
essentially the work of scholars and mathematicians, and may or may 
not represent widespread practice at any given time or in any given 
place. Remember the following:

Musical culture until well into the 19th century is very localized - 
practices as to temperament probably varied widely depending on locality.
A published temperament might have been reflecting the practice 
already in use for many or decades. Or maybe a pioneering conception 
that was never widely adopted. Or maybe a passing fad - there is no 
way to know...  And until well into the 19th century musicians tuned 
their own pianos - the professional tuner comes on the scene with the 
modern piano, sometime in mid 19th century. There was no "tuners' 
guild" to maintain standards... So who knows what kind of "intonation 
environment" (if any steady one) any given composer lived in...

So, there is no sense in arguing the "correctness" of using WT on 
pianos - and in any case, it's irrelevant. There is only one 
consideration that is pretty much a constant throughout the entire 
history of music - musicians will adopt whatever appeals to them or 
whatever they think will appeal to their audiences. And that's the 
only thing that matters...

Israel Stein



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