In defense of Rasch.

On Fri, 22 Sep 1995, Aleksander Frosztega wrote:
>Just to set the record straight, Prof. dr. Rasch's work in the field of
>temperament is not aimed at undermining the beauty and use of unequal
>temperaments and all the research that has gone into them in this century.
>Contrary to what most people seem to think, he is a great lover of unequal
>temperaments.

"Personally, I dislike the many Pythagorean major thirds that arise with
these tunings when playing preludes and fugues with five to seven sharps
or flats." (p. 306)

Again, to be fair, he says later that he doesn't intend the elimination
of unequal temperaments, just to extend the view that ET may well be the
most appropriate tuning for some pieces like WTK.

BTW, there are only two Pythagorean ditones in Barnes' temperament.

> But, as any other good scientist, he cannot ignore the
>*evidence* - that being in this case, that there was a steady growth of the use
>of equal temperament throughout the 18th century. [snip]

Well, I'll give you that (though see Jorgenson for an argument that no
one really tuned accurate ETs until a century or so ago when beat rates
were calculated and began to be used), but the point is that the
evidence that _Bach_, specifically, used ET is tenuous to the point of
nonexistence.

--pH (manynote@library.wustl.edu or http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote)
O
/\ "Do you like to gamble, Eddie?
-\-\-- o Gamble money on pool games?"

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On Sun, 24 Sep 1995, Aleksander Frosztega wrote:
> Flat fifths were never mentioned in Rasch's quote.

No, they weren't, were they? So what were you referring to when you
said this a few articles back?

"As pointed out by Prof. Rasch, Kirnberger admitted several times to
Marpurg that Bach tuned each one of his fifths a bit flat."

> But you are correct in
> stating that Marpurg is wrong; What Marpurg probably meant to say was
> that if all the major thids where to be made wide, a major third, wide by a
> syntonic comma, was not possible.

But this is _still_ incorrect. For example, consider a temperament in
which five succesive fifths are tempered by 1/5 Pythagorean comma each,
and the other seven just. In this tuning, all major thirds are wider
than just, but it has no fewer than _four_ Pythagorean major thirds
(wide by a syntonic comma).

(It is curious to me that, while you insist the evidence is unambiguous,
you resort to interpretations and speculations like this one and the one
below.)

[snip]

> Kinberger himself, for all the polemics with Marpurg, remains silent on the
> disposition of J.S. Bach's temperament. However, knowing Kirnberger, he
> would have LEPT at the chance to publically humiliate Marpurg, were
> Marpurg's original statement about J.S. Bach's temperament false (this
> would follow the pattern of their famous vituperations). He didn't. It is
> inconceivable that Kirnberger was unaware of the passage in question.
> That is why we can probably trust that the quote represents correct
> information. This is also the reason that you should not dismiss evidence
> in Marpurg so quickly...

So you'd rather trust Marpurg's slanted interpretation of Kirnberger's
statements, even though he makes a whopping big theoretical error in it?
Hmmph.

The following two quotes are from _A History of Key Characteristics in
the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries_, by Rita Steblin (UMI
Research Press, 1983), already cited once in this thread.

p.91:
: It is known that Marpurg's attack caused Kirnberger much bitter
: anguish: he poured out his vexation in a series of letters to Forkel
: from 1779-80. . . . although Kirnberger did not publish a
: counterattack himself, he did include a defense written by the
: important mathematician and military officer at the Berlin court,
: Georg Friedrich Tempelhof (1737-1807).

p.92:
: Marpurg, the avowed disciple of Rameau, had drawn clear battle lines
: between his theories in support of equal temperament and those of
: Kirnberger. Since the latter had declared that his primary intention in
: _Die Kunst_ was to transmit the theoretical principles of J.S. Bach,
: Marpurg's cruelest blow was the accusation that Kirnberger was not
: faithful to Bach--not faithful because, as Marpurg contended, Bach had
: actually taught Kirnberger to tune in equal temperament. Marpurg then
: appealed to Bach's sons to substantiate him in his claim, but this ruse
: backfired, and Kirnberger was able to end _Die Kunst_ with the following
: passage taken from a letter that C.P.E. Bach had sent him:
:
: The conduct of Herr Marpurg against you is abominable. . . . You
: may proclaim that my fundamental principles and those of my late
: father are anti-Rameau.
:
: In this manner Kirnberger managed to get in a final blow. Although it
: is not clear whether this quotation applies specifically to unequal
: temperament and key characteristics, there is no reason to believe that
: this topic--so important in Kirnberger's writing--should be excluded
: from the anti-Rameauist principles espoused by the Bachs.

--pH (manynote@library.wustl.edu or http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote)
O
/\ "Do you like to gamble, Eddie?
-\-\-- o Gamble money on pool games?"

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