Re: [tuning] Re: a 9-tone "Liszt scale"?

Joseph Pehrson wrote,

> Huh?? Isn't 121121121, 6s3L (??)
>
> Signed,
>
> confused

YIKES!

No, your definitely NOT confused... but apparently I'm definitely NOT
awake either! Sorry all, that was supposed to have read 3L6s right
from the start.

d

Hi, Joe (and Dan),

Sorry to hear you're out on the West Coast now - or rather, sorry to hear
I'm stuck back here on the East Coast. But glad you're so active. And I
can't wait to hear that JI Mahler Seventh.

So 6L3s would be a 15-tone scale ((6 x 2) + 3)? I know Liszt had an
interest in microtones, which may be where Busoni first got the idea. And
there is a 9-tone scale called the Tcherepnin scale, after the composer, in
12-tET, but it's 3L6s (see how quick I pick things up?):

C C# D E F F# G# A Bb

which is conceptually similar to the octotonic scale that Liszt was among
the first to use. Is it possible Dan switched the numbers around and it's
3L6s instead of 6L3s? Alexander Tcherepnin used that scale a lot, but it's
obviously in 12-tET. Whatever microtones Liszt was interested in wouldn't
have included, I don't think, a number of tones per octave not divisible by
12. The theoretical treatise Liszt worked on in the last years of his life
disappeared, and to make things worse, his "friends" were afraid the world
would think Liszt had gone mad if they knew what weird projects he was
working on, which is why some of his strangest compositions didn't get
published until the 1950s. But next time I'm at my office I'll look through
my Liszt stuff and confirm what scales he was known to be thinking about.

I downloaded Dan's mp3 *At a Day Job*, which is a blast (I'm a pushover for
a 13/10 interval - tried to base a piece on the sucker myself and couldn't
finish it, but I wanted to hear Dan's). I intend to download a lot more,
but it's slow, my screen freezes, my modem cuts off, etc. Easier to run to
the record store.

All the best,

Kyle

Bingo!

Well, great minds run in the same gutter, 'cause everyone had worked it out
before I could even get back. I wouldn't be surprised if Liszt had a late
piano piece or two in that scale, and I'll check around. But Tcherepnin's
music is loaded with it. Leon Botstein conducted Tcherepnin's Rhapsodie
Georgienne here last year, an early work based on Georgian folk tunes, and
it was loaded with Tcherepnin scale, every page. Easy to find, because
there's always one augmented triad missing from it. If Tcherepnin's
interest was piqued by Georgian folk music, there may be some folk use of
it that Liszt got hold of, as omniverously as he studied every folk music
he could find out about.

And thanks for the welcome.

Best,

Kyle

Kyle Gann wrote,

> So 6L3s would be a 15-tone scale ((6 x 2) + 3)?

Right, but unfortunately that was just typo on my part -- sorry, it
should have read 3L6s (ds = dan stearns, sd = sleepy dan). However, it
looks like you've already put all that together and pinpointed the
scale as well!

> there is a 9-tone scale called the Tcherepnin scale, after the
composer, in 12-tET, but it's 3L6s (see how quick I pick things up?):

The Tcherepnin scale... hmm... yeah, I think your right, that must be
it. Thanks Kyle! I'll see what else I can dig up on this now.

d ( = dan)

BTW, thanks a bunch for checking out Day Job! I surely do appreciate
the kind comments.

So much of Liszt's late music is based on augmented triads that one
can
analyze passages of a late work like *Nuages gris* in Tcherepnin
scale:
move through any three augmented triads, and you've got a Tcherepnin
scale. His *Sketches for a Harmony of the Future*, however - the
manuscript that was seen by friends but never surfaced after Liszt's
death - seems to have had less to do with scales and more to do with
building chords from intervals other than thirds, especially fourths
and tritones. And I can't find a passage of much length in the scale.

To make a correction, Ferruccio Busoni was only 10 years old when he
met Liszt. I suspect Liszt probably didn't discuss quarter-tones with
the young lad. It was Debussy, not Busoni, who spent more private
time
with Liszt in the last years of his life, and to whom Liszt confided
some of his theoretical concerns.

Kyle Gann

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/12870

> Joseph Pehrson wrote,
>
> > Huh?? Isn't 121121121, 6s3L (??)
> >
> > Signed,
> >
> > confused
>
>
> YIKES!
>
> No, your definitely NOT confused... but apparently I'm definitely
NOT
> awake either! Sorry all, that was supposed to have read 3L6s right
> from the start.
>
>
> d

Hi Dan!

I told you I needed a little "remedial math," but this one was,
well..., at my level! :)

Joe