Kirnberger III

Monz writes:
<< I have just in the last two weeks

been studying the temperament known as "Kirnberger III",

because I've been learning Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and

believe that Kirnberger III may have been a typical tuning on

Beethoven's piano at the time he wrote the sonata.>>

Greetings,
Yes, I agree. In his time, the easiest to tune tuning was probably the
one most used. These circulating temperaments represented art,hence,
subjective criteria. This is what we did. I tuned a temperament and we
listened to several pieces, passages, etc. After a while, some things become
more attractive and we go for them without getting too bogged down in how
plausibly historical the decision may be.
In preparation for our well-tempered Beethoven CD, we listened to the
Opus 27 (Moonlight) as well as others in the Kirnberger tuning. A very
beautiful sound, with a meantone arrangement of the white notes, it certainly
colors the music. It seemed to occasionally "jolt" in the Moonlight.
We kept the Kirnberger for the Pathetique, since the syntonic commas
create, in the middle Ab section, a very distinctive sound.(some tuners
think it stinks, but their brains are "ET-locked" I thought the world should
know what a comma sounds like on a 9' Steinway). We thought it provided a
very intense harmony. This temperament has a LOT of contrast.
In comparison, the Young of 1799 better suited our expectations for the
Moonlight. It seemed to flow better. The steps between levels of dissonance
are smaller, but there are more of them. I suppose this will be a musical
decison, with no right or wrong. After our 1/4 comma Mozart recording, I
was amazed to learn how many people can dig a 41 cent wide third/dim4 ! I
thought I was proving that it wouldn't have been done that way and now, I'm
being told how good it sounds. Go figure.
Regards,
Ed Foote
Nashville, Tn.

Hi Ed,

If anyone was going to comment on my post, I was hoping and
expecting that it would be you.

I'm glad to have more detailed information on the tunings
in your Beethoven CD, which I like very much. As you say
with your choices, I too made my decision to utilize
Kirnberger III for the "Moonlight" more-or-less arbitrarily,
based primarily on the ease of tuning a piano this way.

There was also something else I read recently that made
me lean this way... can't find it now, but it implied that
Kirnberger III would have been a typical piano tuning for
Beethoven. (I believe it was a reference to Marpurg.)

Also, I might note that he could still hear at the time he
wrote the "Moonlight". His deafness was not total until at
least 10 years later, if not later than that. So I think
that the sound of his piano tuning would be likely to have
an influence on his compositional choices.

-monz

> From: <a440a@aol.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 5:50 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Kirnberger III
>
>
> Monz writes:
> > << I have just in the last two weeks
> > been studying the temperament known as "Kirnberger III",
> > because I've been learning Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and
> > believe that Kirnberger III may have been a typical tuning on
> > Beethoven's piano at the time he wrote the sonata.>>
>
> Greetings,
> Yes, I agree. In his time, the easiest to tune tuning was
> probably the one most used. These circulating temperaments
> represented art, hence, subjective criteria. This is what we
> did. I tuned a temperament and we listened to several pieces,
> passages, etc. After a while, some things become more attractive
> and we go for them without getting too bogged down in how
> plausibly historical the decision may be.
> In preparation for our well-tempered Beethoven CD, we
> listened to the Opus 27 (Moonlight) as well as others in the
> Kirnberger tuning. A very beautiful sound, with a meantone
> arrangement of the white notes, it certainly colors the music.
> It seemed to occasionally "jolt" in the Moonlight.
> We kept the Kirnberger for the Pathetique, since the syntonic
> commas create, in the middle Ab section, a very distinctive sound.
> (some tuners think it stinks, but their brains are "ET-locked" I
> thought the world should know what a comma sounds like on a 9'
> Steinway). We thought it provided a very intense harmony.
> This temperament has a LOT of contrast.
> In comparison, the Young of 1799 better suited our
> expectations for the Moonlight. It seemed to flow better. The
> steps between levels of dissonance are smaller, but there are
> more of them. I suppose this will be a musical decison, with
> no right or wrong. After our 1/4 comma Mozart recording, I
> was amazed to learn how many people can dig a 41 cent wide
> third/dim4 ! I thought I was proving that it wouldn't have
> been done that way and now, I'm being told how good it sounds.
> Go figure.

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