Mozart and ET?

Ed Foote (A440A@aol.com) wrote:
>
> Jonathan Walker writes;
>
> >As for a Mozart keyboard piece, equal
> >temperament was in the process of supplanting well-tempered systems
> >for keyboards in the German-speaking lands during Mozart's lifetime
>
> I must question this. I would be very interested in learning who
> was tuning equally tempered keyboards in the 1700's, and how they
> were doing it. This date seems somewhat at odds with Hipkins'
> experience at Broadwood's, (the English were not 100 years behind
> the times in temperament practises, were they?)
> From what I have read, in Mozart's lifetime ET was the province of
> theorists, but well-tempering practises went for another 100 years.

The first source which comes to mind is Thomas McGeary's article
"German-Austrian Keyboard Temperaments and Tuning Methods, 1770-1840:
Evidence from Contemporary Sources". Unlike Barbour, McGeary isn't
spoilt by any over-egging of the equal-tempered pudding, and, as I
glance over it, it looks well researched and generally reliable (it's
a few years since I read it, so if anyone else has comments ...). The
only catch is that it appeared in the Journal of the American Musical
Instrument Society (Vol.XV, 1989, pp.90-118) so you may require an
inter-library loan to obtain it. A substantial and important part of
McGeary's argument is devoted to establishing that Kirnberger II never
had the prominence in practice that a few later treatises might
suggest -- I think this is done convincingly.

As for a disparity between the German speaking lands and elsewhere ...
well that's precisely why I inserted the qualifying phrase
"German-speaking lands" in my sentence from yesterday's message:
"equal temperament was in the process of supplanting well-tempered
systems for keyboards in the German-speaking lands during Mozart's
lifetime". Both France and England moved over to equal temperament at
a much later stage, but 50 or 75 years rather than 100 years after
Germany/Austria (you already know the time when Broadwood made the
change). I would guess that the reason we know precisely when a given
French or English maker switched to equal temperament in the first
half of the 19th century but can speak only of a gradual change in
Germany during the second half of the 18th is because piano tuning had
largely become a task of professionals by the time of the
French/English changes, whereas many or most players were capable of
tuning their own pianos at the time the changes occured in Germany. Am
I right?

Chopin is the first important composer of piano music whom I can
recall making a statement about his decided preference for equal
temperament -- this was because it was still a matter of controversy
in France. Beethoven's well-known pronouncements on key
characteristics should not be taken to imply that he preferred some
variety of well-temperament, because he is also on record as claiming
that he could distinguish between C# major and Db major (!), which, I
need hardly say, is not a distinction that can be made in any
well-temperament. I would accept that Beethoven's notions concerning
key characteristics originated in part from the well-temperament that
he must have been familiar with in his youth, but if the connection
between the two had been of great importance to him, we should expect
him to have made statements on the lamentable erosion of key
characteristics through the adoption of equal temperament (especially
since by the time he was making his pronouncements on key
characteristics, equal temperament was almost universally employed in
Germany/Austria).

But don't stop at my speculations -- read McGeary. If you have
problems obtaining his article, I would expect that general sources
such as Grove would soon furnish the requisite information, though in
less detail.

--
Jonathan Walker
Queen's University Belfast
mailto:kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk
http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~walker/


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