FWD: Bach's Tuning (long)

Paul Hahn 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."

Frankly, I don't know what I was refering to. I thought I had remembered
reading a reference to flat fifths somewhere; one hour of going through my
notes yielded nothing, however. My apologies to yourself, Mr. Reinhard
and members of this List for this flub.

>> 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).

Sorry, my original quote should have read: "What Marpurg probably meant
to say was that if all the major thirds where to be made [equally as] wide, a
major third, wide by a syntonic comma, was not possible." Marpurg,
however, was still wrong. The passage in question here is, admittedly,
sloppy work on the part of Marpurg. As anyone familiar with his work in
temperament knows, this is not characteristic of Marpurg's work, where he
is one of the most precise writers in 18th-century Germany.

>(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.)

I have spent many years reading the primary sources. In writing my
dissertation, I've read all of Marpurg, all of Kirnberger and everyone else
that dealt with tuning and temperament in Germany. Undoubtedly, I've
missed some sources. But not a lot, I trust. Unlike today, when scientific
writing tends to adhere to the "stylus dragneticus," 18th-century German
scientific writing was very personal (there are exceptions) and one quickly
becomes almost "personally" familiar with the writer. One knows how they
thought and gets a strong feeling as to what they would react like given a
certain set of circumstances. Spending so much time with them, I almost
feel as if I knew these men, who died over 200 years ago. If I make a
conjecture, it is based on this intimacy and a body of evidence. It is not
incorrect jurisprudence to extrapolate postulates based on a given body of
evidence and knowledge of the subject's past behavior.


>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.

Yes. One bumbling error does not the whole of Marpurg make.

>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).

Although I admire Ms. Steblin's writings, I believe that she is wrong here.
Although Tempelhof may have begun the review in question, Kirnberger
himself (trying to pull a 'Marpurg') must have finished it. This is evident in
the break of literary style (Tempelhof's and Kirnberger's litterary styles are
completely dissimilar) and I would be very surprised indeed that if, upon
meeting Kirnberger in the afterlife, he would tell me that Tempelhof wrote
the whole thing... ;)

>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.

Bzzzz. Wrong again. The quote to which Ms.Steblin refers (contained in
the infamous 23er Abschnitt of Marpurg's _Versuch_ ) is not about
whether Kirnberger was being faithful to Bach or not. It was about
Kirnberger's invocation of authority over empirical evidence. Read the
section yourself, then we can talk (_Versuch_ [1776], pp.182-219).

>: Marpurg then
>: appealed to Bach's sons to substantiate him in his claim, but this ruse

Marpurg actually *quoted* C.P.E. Bach (_Versuch ueber die wahre
Kunst_) and *only* C.P.E. Bach. No letters were exchanged, as she
implies...

>: 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.

Wow. Ms. Steblin streches quite a bit in drawing this conclusion.
(Her translation isn't very good either.)
My feeling is that the passage in question refers to Marpurg's _Versuch_ on
the whole (remember that the second half of the _Versuch_ (90-some
pages) has nothing to do with temperament but is a giant polemic on
Kirnbergers harmonic theories as opposed to Rameau's (which Marpurg
really didn't fully understand himself).


Aleksander Frosztega



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