Major tonic endings

Paul Erlich wrote:

>>'' Pieces in minor tended to end with a Picardy (major tonic) chord in
the
>>days
>>when the minor triad was tuned 10:12:15.''

I asked:

>Can you identify ''those days'' with any exactitude?

He responded:

''No, there is no single set of dates. I would say Renaissance through
Middle
Baroque. Well-temperaments brought the 16:19:24 tuning into currency in the

Late Baroque period. Please don't make this into another black-and-white
issue, I'm trying to explain tendencies, not impose rules. Having played in

these tunings during the 20th century, I can't give experimental proof that

my own tendencies in this regard are similar to historical ones
indepentenly
of having grown up bombarded with classical music on the radio (which
included some authentically-tuned performances of Renaissance music). But I

feel them strongly.''

The problem is that the ''Renaissance to Middle Baroque'' - I assume you
intend a period between the last days of Pythagoreanism and the advent of
well temperaments - is a time period where different intonations were in
use simultaneously, depending largely upon instrumental resources and
whether voices were accompanied or not. The reasonable rule of thumb has
been that fretted strings approximated equal temperament (Vincentino 1555),
keyboards used some form of meantone, and voices, unfretted strings and
winds either matched the temperament of continuo instruments or tended
towards just intervals. To attribute a harmonic figure like the tonic
major ending to intonational practice is problematic in that the figure is
present in all instrumental repertoires, without regard to tuning. Even if
the figure were to have originated in a just or meantone environment
(approximating /6:/5:/4) - and its obiquity in the lute repertoire speaks
against this - the adoption into other tuning systems would have meant that
the figure was frequently heard without the psychoacoustic effect that you
claim. For this reason, I suspect that the figure became established as an
affect independent of its precise intonation - and one whose archaicizing
quality was already well established in the late meantone repertoire (hence
Rousseau's label identifying the figure with gothic Picardie).


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