FWD: Bach's Tuning

>>It is dangerous to cite Kirnberger as a paradigm of J.S. Bach's
>>compositional practice; it is even more dangerous to cite Kirnberger's
>>thoughts on temperament as being those of J.S. Bach's.

>And it is yet _more_ dangerous to take Marpurg's spin on Kirnberger's
>statements as being those of Bach. See below.

If you read the above again carefully, I never said that Kirnberger quoted
any statements by Bach.

>> Kirnberger's temperaments
>>(there are 5 altogether) were attempts to reconcile just intonation
>>with free modulation.

>Er--isn't this what _all_ temperaments are?

Yes and no: Although Circular Temperaments fit the above criteria, all
Multi-linears and most Linears, by their very nature, don't. (e.g., mean
tone limits modulation to keys utilizing no more than three sharps or two
flats...free modulation [through the the peripheral keys] doesn't exist in
mean tone.)

[snip]

[quote by Mr. Hahn]
:Several times Kirnberger himself told me and others how the famous J.S.
:Bach (during the time of the former's musical instruction under the
:latter) made over to him the tuning of his keyboard, and how that master
:expressly desired him to make all major thirds sharp. In a tuning with
:all major thirds sharp, no pure major third can occur, but as soon as no
:pure major thirds are found, so too no major third can be found [which
:is] a comma (81/80) sharp. J.S. Bach, whose hearing was not impaired by
:bad arithmetic, must have heard that a major third a comma sharp is a
:disgusting interval. Why else did he entitle his collection of preludes
:and fugues in all twenty-four keys the Art of Temperament?
[unquote]

>The problem with this is that Marpurg is simply wrong. A temperament
>with all major thirds sharper than pure (which is _all_ that we really
>know about Bach's tuning from evidence like this) is by no means
>required to have all fifths flat; that is a much, much stricter
>requirement. [snip]

Flat fifths were never mentioned in Rasch's quote. 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. I suspect that Marpurg wrote the
above just to perturb Kirnberger. (The whole quote refers to Marpurg's
ridicule of Kirnberger II and Kirnberger's temperament theory in general.)

>If you know of any documents in which Kirnberger himself, not filtered
>through his rhetorical adversary Marpurg, admits that Bach tuned all
>fifths flat, please cite it.

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...

Aleksander Frosztega



-------------------------------------------------------
Aleksander Frosztega "Odi summusos; proinde aperte
University of Utrecht dice quid sit quod times."
The Netherlands

>(b) Actually, Jorgenson seems a more persuasive rebuttal to Rasch than
>anything else I've seen in this discussion. How could they use e.t. if
>they were unable to tune it? (And in my experience it's a very touchy
>thing. The intervals are stretched to the limit of tolerance; get one
>of them wrong & it sounds like hell. I use a strobe.)

Jorgensen's argument that ET could not have been tuned in the 18th
century is specious. I've addressed this issue in another posting, so I
won't take up more band width by repeating myself. Although my own ET
is not that hot, I know other people, and some of them are on this List, that
can tune good ET by ear. Is it acoustically perfect? Maybe not. Does it,
for all intensive purposes, pass as ET? Absolutely.

Aleksander Frosztega


BTW: When I was Eric Herz's tuning assistant at the New England
Conservatory in Boston, I routinely witnessed him tuning very good ET by
ear (on a French double) in 20 minutes. People that say that it can't be
done don't know what they're talking about. Including Jorgensen.



-------------------------------------------------------
Aleksander Frosztega "Odi summusos; proinde aperte
University of Utrecht dice quid sit quod times."
The Netherlands
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