Review of Ed Foote's Beethoven CD

I sent $16 to

Ed Foote
1506 Cedar Lane
Nashville, Tn. 37212

and just receive his wonderful CD, "Beethoven in the Temperaments"
(Gasparo GSCD-332). I thought it might be appropriate to post some
impressions.

The CD is very professionally made, with a fat booklet (36 pages!) which
explains the historical perspective to what Ed has done. It's true,
unfortunately, that no actual numbers for the tunings used are part of
this booklet, but I can understand why - even I, a tuning afficianado
(sp?), found the information included to be almost exhausting in its
detail, aimed at bringing up to speed those who have never questioned
12-tET.

Included are: Sonata, Op. 13 ("Pathetique"), Op. 14 No. 1, Op. 27 No. 2
("Moonlight"), and Op. 53 ("Waldstein"). All are ably played by Enid
Katahn on a great sounding and competently recorded Steinway D grand
piano (serial number 467858 - how's THAT for specific info?).

I found nothing objectionable about the tuning(s) used, compared to
12-tET. At no place did I hear a chord that sounded sour to my ear,
compared to 12-Tet. My only complaint, and this is HIGHLY personal, is
that I wanted more tunings changes, adaptive at that! Such a feat is
not possible today except through the highly inferior medium of MIDI and
realizations thereof. Nor, of course, would any such further
modifications be true to Ed's goal of replicating what Beethoven himself
might have heard as he composed these works.

If Ed, and others who are working along similar lines, are having
trouble (and I suspect they are) selling the idea of using tunings such
as these in concerts around the globe, it may be because the effects are
fairly subtle. That, and the fact that an acoustic piano should be
tuned far in advance of any concert date, which makes 12-tET compelling
for any location which does not have a nice grand to "spare" for some
other tuning.

OTOH, my own sensations as to subtlety of tuning regard may be heavily
skewed by my experiments with much more radical departures from 12-tET.

I will definitely pull this CD off the shelf whenever I want to hear
these works done on an acoustic piano. Congratulations, Ed!!

JdL