Date of 12-EQT's acceptance - geographical variation - late in U.S.

I noticed discussion of date of 12 EQT's "complete acceptance"
and wanted to contribute or recontribute a couple of quotes.
In the U.S. in John Moore's Encyclopaedia of Music, first
published in 1854, the author, under "Bearing Notes" explains
these as the notes of the "most erroneous fifth" produced
by tuning eleven of the fifths "more or less flat". He
also spoke of the error in this "wolf" as being by a "diaschisma",
which is defined later as about "half a minor semitone" or
about 36 cents if the minor semitone is taken as the step
between notes at a 6/5 minor third and a 5/4 major third above
a fixed lower note (cent value for ratio 25/24 is app. 72 cents).
This is approximately the error in the wolf fifth of quarter
comma mean tone temperament. Elsewhere in the encyclopedia,
the author states that on the piano, the major thirds in the
keys of, I believe, D, A, and E are tuned sharper than the
major thirds in the flat keys are tuned, suggesting a well
temperament being used for the piano. The encyclopedia was
published in an almost unchanged 2nd edition in 1880 with
an identical entry for "Bearing Notes".

In a piano tuning manual by Cree published in 1907, the author
stated that it was only within the previous 50 years that EQT's
acceptance had become universal and that even at that time (1907)
some tuners tuned to favor the flat keys - i.e. reduce the
sharpness of the major thirds in those keys - because most
popular music was written in the flat keys and many of the
people who owned pianos played little but popular music.

As recently as 1911, Arnold Schoenberg, in the first edition of
his Harmonielehre (Treatise on Harmony), wrote of 12-EQT as
representing only a temporary truce in music required by the
limitations of musical instruments of that time, predicting
that ultimately music based on the overtones would inevitably
prevail (because of its basis in nature). He removed passages
in which he expressed these opinions from his second edition
of Harmonielehre published in 1920.

In the first edition of Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians
published in England in 1895, the author of the artical on
temperament PROPOSES the reintroduction
of mean tone and just intonation, at least for occasional use to
"relieve the monotony of equal temperament", which suggests that
by 1895 equal temperament had become well established in England.
He does mention, I just remembered, that reminders of the earlier
mean tone system could be found - some country churches where the
organs were still in mean tone temperament, etc.

Also, in his translation of Helmholtz "On the Sensations of Tone"
published in 1885, Ellis speaks of having visited Spain in 1880
and found that most of the organs there were in mean tone
temperament.

I have gotten an impression that up until between about 1910 and
1920, there was an appreciable school of thought among musicians
and music theorists that just intonation was essentially the
real musical tuning and that equal temperament was an approximation
to just intonation. Then, at some point, more musicians and
musical theorists began to view tuning as something almost
arbitrary, so that if a convention such as 12-EQT were adopted
and people were trained to that system, it would be equal as
a standard for musical tuning to just intonation and, since
musicians were training to 12-EQT rather than just intonation,
12-EQT was in fact the true tuning and not just intonation.

Even though this latter attitude seems to be widespread among
more traditional music theorists at present, I believe it is
incorrect, because the psychological impact of chords and also
musical steps (in my opinion) changes appreciably with tuning
changes of as little as a few cents, so that although a person
might, by training, feel that 12-EQT was the correct tuning and
that, say, just intonation was out-of-tune, that person would
definitely hear a difference between the sounds of chords, steps,
and music in 12-EQT and just intonation. Because of the "hard
wiring" of that person's brain, there would be, in addition to
the feelings of correctness or incorrectness brought about
by the sounds of the chords, an emotional impact which would
be independent of the judgments aroused through training
resulting from the specific impacts of the whole sounds in
all their complexity, a significant part of which would be
related to the pitch relationships between the notes sounding -
their frequency ratios, how close these were to integer
ratios, etc.

In the 1895 Groves Dictionary, the author states that the
adoption of 12-EQT was a good thing, "at least for trade".
I have the feeling that commercial interests of the later
19th century and early 20th century and later played a role larger
than appreciated in convincing the musical establishment
and the general public that 12-EQT was optimal as the
tuning for all music (at least instrumental music) and
that using just intonation or mean tone temperament wouldn't
really bring any benefit or be advisable at all. As those
who had extensive familiarity with mean tone temperament
music and just intonation music (string quartets at one
time if a writer in 1877 is to be believed) died off, it
became increasingly easy to induce musicians and the
general public to believe in 12-EQT as the best possible
tuning for music without anyone raising any objections
to this.

Dave Hill, Borrego Springs, CA

Dave Hill wrote,

>I have gotten an impression that up until between about 1910 and
>1920, there was an appreciable school of thought among musicians
>and music theorists that just intonation was essentially the
>real musical tuning and that equal temperament was an approximation
>to just intonation.

I would say meantone rather than just intonation -- Woolhouse and the
authors of the old articles you sent me seemed well aware that just
intonation, in its strict form, could not serve as the "real musical tuning"
for the music with which they were familiar.

>just intonation music (string quartets at one
>time if a writer in 1877 is to be believed)

If so, then it would have been _adaptive_ JI, rather than strict JI.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, ASCEND11@A... wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17419

> I noticed discussion of date of 12 EQT's "complete acceptance"
> and wanted to contribute or recontribute a couple of quotes.

It seems according to Dave Hill's commentary, that the hegemony of
12-tET started more toward 1900... like Monzo originally suggested...

AND:

> As recently as 1911, Arnold Schoenberg, in the first edition of
> his Harmonielehre (Treatise on Harmony), wrote of 12-EQT as
> representing only a temporary truce in music required by the
> limitations of musical instruments of that time, predicting
> that ultimately music based on the overtones would inevitably
> prevail (because of its basis in nature). He removed passages
> in which he expressed these opinions from his second edition
> of Harmonielehre published in 1920.
>

Monzo... have you seen the FIRST edition of the Harmonielehre?? I
have not. What I have here is the commonly found paperback of the
THIRD edition of 1922. Might I assume that Schoenberg PUT BACK IN
the microtonal material in the APPENDIX of the THIRD edition???

Such interesting quotes as this results:

Schoenberg:

"One may assume that finer subdivision of the octave into scale
degrees (Mehrstufigkeit [more steps]) indicates a higher level of
development. Then, the greater number of available scale degrees
yields so many more melodic possibilities that, even with its greater
age, music embodying such has probably not yet had time to advance
much beyond the elaboration of monophonic combinations. [Partch??
dunno--JP] Hence, there all polyphony is probably at best in its
early, tentative stage, comparable to the initial stage of polyphony
in our music several centuries ago..."

_________ _____ ___ _
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <josephpehrson@c...>
wrote:

> Monzo... have you seen the FIRST edition of the [Schoenberg]
> Harmonielehre?? I have not. What I have here is the commonly
> found paperback of the THIRD edition of 1922. Might I assume
> that Schoenberg PUT BACK IN the microtonal material in the
> APPENDIX of the THIRD edition???

No, Joe, I have not yet hunted down the first edition, but
I do plan on getting it soon so that I can make use of it
in my upcoming Microfest lecture ("Microtonality in Berlin
and Vienna in the early 1900s").

In the currently available (and only "complete") English
translation by Roy Carter, the preface sets out in pretty
good detail the sources Carter used for his text.

But I most certainly want to see exactly what are the
differences between the 1st and 3rd editions of this book.
They would document the change in Schoenberg's thinking
about tuning, on which I posted a few days ago.

Webern's sketches with microtonal indications occur in
a set of songs which he dated only as a set to "1908-9".
Unfortunately I have not been able to date them any more
accurately than that.

Schoenberg's compositional activity over the summer of 1909
was as follows:

_5 Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16_:
1st piece: May 23 - June 9
2nd piece: finished June 15
3rd (the infamous _klangfarbenmelodie_) piece: finished July 1
4th piece: July 17 and 18
5th piece: finished August 11

He also finished the 3rd piece of _3 Piano Pieces, op. 11_
on August 7, thus completing that set.

Busoni sent Schoenberg a copy of his book _Outline [or Sketch]
for a New Aesthetic of Music_, in which he explains a notation
for 36-tET, on 1909 August 20.

Schoenberg responded to Busoni on August 24 with a very long
letter in which he tried to explain how he wanted his music to
express "pure feeling", without constraints based on formal or
structural procedures, and in which he also told Busoni that
he found the explanation of 36-tET fascinating, showed how
he himself had devised accidentals for quarter-tones based on
the mathematical less-than (<) and greater-than (>) symbols,
and that he ultimately rejected the use of microtones.

This letter was sent 3 days before Schoenberg began the
composition of _Erwartung_, an amazing piece about which
I say on my webpage: "in my opinion it marks the sharpest
break with tradition in the history of European music".

Apparently, the work Schoenberg did that summer convinced
him that free use of the 12 notes of 12-tET were more than
enough to allow him to express what he felt.

But it is noteworthy that he wrote most of _Harmonielehre_
during the summer of 1910, i.e., a year later, and he still
had favorable things to say about the use of microtones and
overtones-as-basis-of-harmony.

It was not until after his development of the "12-tone method"
(c. 1920) that Scheonberg removed these statements in the revised
3rd edition of his book. I would thus speculate that all
during the 1910s, or at least before W.W. 1, he may have had
a more-or-less favorable opinion of microtonality.

This was precisely when Mo:llendorf and Maeger began their
quarter-tone experiments, and I can document that Mo:llendorf
gave a lecture/demonstration with his newly-patented
"bichromatic [quarter-tone] harmonium" in Vienna in 1917
that was so successful he had to repeat it.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'

--- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17484

>
> It was not until after his development of the "12-tone method"
> (c. 1920) that Scheonberg removed these statements in the revised
> 3rd edition of his book. I would thus speculate that all
> during the 1910s, or at least before W.W. 1, he may have had
> a more-or-less favorable opinion of microtonality.
>

Hi Monz....

Are you certain this is correct? I thought all the references to
microtonality were removed in the SECOND edition of the book. The
THIRD eidtion of 1922 has such references in the APPENDIX.

Is it possible that Schoenberg put the references back in, in the
APPENDIX of the THIRD edition of 1922 when microtonality was
becoming fashionable in Vienna???

________ _____ ___ _
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <josephpehrson@c...>
wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17499

> --- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:
>
> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17484
>
> >
> > It was not until after his development of the "12-tone method"
> > (c. 1920) that Scheonberg removed these statements in the revised
> > 3rd edition of his book. I would thus speculate that all
> > during the 1910s, or at least before W.W. 1, he may have had
> > a more-or-less favorable opinion of microtonality.
> >
>
> Hi Monz....
>
> Are you certain this is correct? I thought all the references to
> microtonality were removed in the SECOND edition of the book. The
> THIRD eidtion of 1922 has such references in the APPENDIX.
>
> Is it possible that Schoenberg put the references back in, in the
> APPENDIX of the THIRD edition of 1922 when microtonality was
> becoming fashionable in Vienna???

Sorry, Joe, what you write is certainly more accurate. As I
said yesterday, I haven't yet really explored the various
deletions and additions in the various early editions of
Schoenberg's _Harmonielehre_.

I was responding based on what I remembered from Roy Carter's
preface (in the 1978 English translation), without actually
checking it. I recall Carter discussing the 1st and 3rd editions,
but not the 2nd; I was thus under the impression that the 2nd
edition was an unaltered reprint. I could certainly be wrong
about that. Where did you get your info?

I'll have more to say on this after I've looked at the actual 1st,
2nd, and 3rd editions... which probably will
take some time.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'

--- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17519

> I was responding based on what I remembered from Roy Carter's
> preface (in the 1978 English translation), without actually
> checking it. I recall Carter discussing the 1st and 3rd editions,
> but not the 2nd; I was thus under the impression that the 2nd
> edition was an unaltered reprint. I could certainly be wrong
> about that. Where did you get your info?
>

I would like to say it was dedicated historical research....
However, it was only "guesswork."

I just saw that the third edition of 1922 had the microtonal material
in an APPENDIX. You had mentioned that he took all such references
out of the original 1911 edition when he published the SECOND edition.
(Didn't you?? If YOU didn't somebody did!)

Therefore, I just "guessed" that he put the original microtonal stuff
BACK IN in the APPENDIX of the Third Edition, since microtonality was
becoming more "in vogue" in Vienna at that time...

However, as you say, it will take a comparison of all three editions
before we know for sure!

Thanks!

Joe P.
________ _____ ____ _
Joseph Pehrson