ET citation

Poole, H. W. On Perfect Intonation and the Euharmonic Organ. New
Englander and Yale review. Volume 8, Issue 30. May 1850

When Handel, Bach, Haydn, and other great composers, filled up a
score, they sat down to employ those colorings and shades-to borrow
from a sister art-upon the ground-work of their plan, which their keen
perceptive faculties saw to be in perfect harmony and keeping with
their design. They did not dip their pencils in any physical organ,-to
take out a series of tempered discords-sharp thirds, flat fifths, &c.-
to seek the special effect of equal temperament, or of some bad and
intolerable scale in the unequal temperament. Any reflecting person,
acquainted with their scores, will see no evidence there of any other
design than of weaving together the elements of perfect harmony, in
accordant or temporarily discordant combinations, with the occasional
introduction, into the scale on which they were moving, of chromatic
intervals, borrowed from the adjoining sharps or flats appropriate to
the scale. There is not a shadow of evidence that their lofty and pure
conceptions grovelled below the lofty ideal of perfect scales of
harmony, or sought to interweave in their fabric the restless and
unquiet turbulence of an unharmonious instrument as the staple. They
doubtless were the most sensitive of all persons to the slightest
false harmony that might occur in the representations of their scores,
and could not but sigh, as they sat at the organ pressing the bank of
keys correctly with their fingers, that they could not bring from the
pipes on the wind-chest, a perfect response of their conceptions in
the sounds wafted to their ears. Doubtless, they
had in view special instruments often in their compositions; in order
to secure the effect of the peculiar qualities of sound or pitch
belonging to those particular instruments; but, surely, never for
seeking any peculiar deviations from a true scale of harmony.
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Eliot, Samuel A. The Euharmonic Organ. The Living age. Volume 26,
Issue 329. September 7, 1850

In tuning a common organ or piano by equal temperament, the
imperfection of the divisions of
the octave is distributed as well and as equally as it can be among
all the tones; i. e., none are
mathematically exact. If the third were made precisely accurate, the
fifth would be further from
an exact chord thanjf the one be a little sharped, and the other a
little flatted., and so of other in-
tervals. The consequence is that no two strings of a piano, and no two
pipes of an organ are in
perfect tune. They sound more or less discordantly...
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The Piano-Forte. Manufacturer and builder. Volume 1, Issue 4. April
1869

...Since it was not until the year 1548 that the octave was divided
into twelve equal parts, all instruments with such key-boards, whether
organs, chimes, or clavichords, must date subsequent to that point of
time...
Praetorius, the great musical German author of the sixteenth century,
has given a description of a so-called universal clavicymbal which he
saw in Prague at Carl Luyton's, composer and organist of the emperor.
The instrument had almost the exact form of time modern grand piano,
the latter deprived of its legs. It was,
as it were, a harp placed in a horizontal position, with keys
attached. The great peculiarity of the instrument
was in the fact that the four octaves were divided into seventy-six
notes instead of forty-eight; giving, therefore, nineteen notes in
each octave in place of twelve, as is now the castom. It appears that
already at that time it had been noticed. that c-sharp was not the
same as d-flat, nor d-sharp the same as e-flat, as on this instrument
there were separate keys for them; and also other keys were provided
for a similar reason between e and f and between b and c. Thus a
perfect equal division of the octave into nineteen parts was effected.
But in conclusion it may be remarked, that our modern equal
temperament of twelve tones makes such an acceptable compromise
between sharps and flats as to have long since rendered these old
contrivances altogether useless.
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New Publications. Manufacturer and builder. Volume 10, Issue 11.
November 1878

It would have been better had one chapter been left out [of 'Elements
Of Plane and Solid Free-Hand Geometrical Drawing, with Lettering. By
S. Edward Warren, C.E. New York: Wiley & Sons.'] namely, that entitled
"General Applications of the Idea of Beauty in Ratios—Analogy of Forms
and Sound." The writer
gives the subdivision of a string in 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, and 1/5 parts, and
attempts to explain from this the principle of harmony; but at the
same time he gives the chromatic keyboard of the piano or organ,
speaks of the difference of the ratios of C-sharp and D-flat, etc. Of
major and minor intervals, diatonic and chromatic semitones, the
interval called comma, the equal temperament, scales of 28 chromatic
tones instead of 12, etc., and "passing from sound to form," based on
linear beauty, he gives the linear proportions of the human form, and
then makes one column of the fractions represent the mutual relations
of the tones of the diatonic scale, after which he selects the
dimensions of the human body which agree with those fractions, such as
"sole of feet to bottom of jaw-bone," "base of knee-pan to top of
head." There is no doubt that any kind of proportion can be found in
this way, the human body being a highly complex object, and the
proportions of men and women varying immensely, while that of musical
tones are fixed. We are confident that this whole chapter will only
serve to befog any reader who does not already understand music.
Fortunately the author says in a foot note: "It is, of course, not
indispensable that the theory of music, even only so far as here
indicated, should be understood in order to render the succeeding
principles of geometric beauty intelligible." This is exactly the
reason why this chapter should have been left out. It is such an
incomplete and mutilated explanation of an intricate subject that it
can do no one any good; none unfamiliar with music will understand it,
while for musicians it does not amount to anything, and will only be
received with
contempt
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Music and Science. The Living age. Volume 140, Issue 1812. March 8,
1879

The results of the modern investigations are so new, and in many
respects so antagonistic to the
ideas hitherto prevailing among musicians, that it is not to be
expected they will be at once fully understood or favorably received.
Already a considerable amount of opposition has been manifested to
them; it is reasonable and proper that they should be fairly
considered, and it is in the highest degree desirable that they should
be clearly explained. The subject has not been neglected at the
meetings of the association [Musical Association for the Investigation
and Discussion of the Subjects connected with the Art and Science of
Music], for, although no systematic treatment of it has yet been
attempted, we find no less than eight papers on various points of
theoretical detail. Four of these are on intonation and temperament (a
favorite theme with musical mathematicians, but somewhat unpalatable
to practical men, who consider the out-of-tune equal division of the
octave "good enough for them"); a fifth aims at exposing the fallacies
and inconsistencies of certain of the old theoretical systems; another
treats of the philosophical nature of intervals and of the
construction of the scale; another expounds some elementary views on
harmony; and the eighth exhibits various numerical calculations on
musical ratios, etc.

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Musical Pitch. The Living age. Volume 145, Issue 1873. May 8, 1880

Besides the importance of having a uniform pitch to the singer and the
manufacturers of instruments, there is a theoretical advantage to the
listener. With equal temperament when properly carried out, the
relations of the intervals in different keys remain precisely the
same, and the effect of change of key therefore is due to the change
of pitch of the tonic and its related notes. When the ear is
accustomed to one pitch it easily recognizes the key. When the pitch
varies from time to time and place to place, the sense of key becomes
deadened and lost, and even the most experienced ears become confused.
Hence, both theoretically and practically uniformity of pitch is
imperative. Practically an intermediate pitch between the old pitch of
Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, andthe new pitch of Mendelssohn,
Costa, and Verdi, is the only one feasible to allow of both kinds of
music being played by one organ or one band. And such a pitch is
the French, the pitch of all French and most German modern music, the
pitch in which the works of Wagner can properly heard.
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Johann Sebastian Bach.The Living age. Volume 166, Issue 2141. July 4,
1885

Bach's inventive capacity was shown not only in his adoption of equal
temperament, and his innovations in the art of fingering—for in that
too he introduced great improvements — but in the construction of a
new instrument, the lute-harpsichord (Lauticlavicymbel). This
instrument had surprising brilliancy of tone. The difficulty of
tuning, however, led to its abandonment, and no wonder, if in that
respect it at all resembled the first of the instruments from which it
derived its name.