Intonation in the next edition of _Grove's_

I just received word about the current state of affairs at _Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians_. Editor Stanley Sadie had wisely invited Douglas Leedy to write an new article on tuning, and Leedy had argued effectively for not restricting the topic to the Greek inheritance and western Europe. I had read an early draft of the article and was very impressed by both the breadth, substance, and sensitivity of the article.

Unfortunately, Sadie was sacked in some sort of palace coup, and _Grove's_ is now essentially being run by the marketing team. Leedy's article was suddenly hacked up and all non-western content removed, ruining the result of years of thoughtful discussion between Sadie and Leedy.

Leedy wanted to remove his article altogether, but since, by contract, Grove's owns everything he had written for them, the article will be published in the corrupt form. At least the author was allowed to have his name removed.

Well, folks, here's an excellent example of how a "standard" reference work is made, and a further invitation for thinking scholars to keep on questioning authority. In writing about music in general and musical intonation in particular, we have not been helped much by the definitions available in works like _Grove's_, _MGG_, or the _Havard Dictionary_. Sadly, this situation is not likely to improve with the next edition of _Grove's_.

Daniel Wolf
Komponist/Composer, Frankfurt/Morro Bay
djwolf@snafu.de
http://home.snafu.de/djwolf/