Re: "wolf" pack, rat pack [Isacoff] resent

RESENT BY JOHNNY REINHARD DUE TO TRANSMISSION DIFFICULTY--
Isacoff Errors p. 216-217 with the text appearing as in the book, though
sentence by sentence:

Equal temperament was not the, however, the only tuning proposed to
accommodate this new musical trend.
----The wrong implication as Werckmeister preceded ET on keyboards

Werckmeister developed an irregular temperament that came to be known as well
temperament.
-----Werckmeister called it, and likely named it well temperament.

In Werckmeister's well-tempered tuning, certain keys were more in tune than
others, but none were so out of tune as to be unplayable.
-----No key were was more dissonant than Pythagorean, which was still heard
in the culture.

Therefore, as a musical work moved from one key center to another, the shift
would become blatant: the more far-reaching the displacement, the more
grating the harmonies.
-----Not blatant at all, at least most people do not register any difference
at all. And there is nothing grating other than a modern predisposition.
Isacoff clearly has not heard the tuning.

This variegation a kind of perspective through audible shading was seized
upon as a good thing by opponents of equal temperament, who saw in
Werckmeister's system the advantage of a built-in musical syntax.
-----This happens after Werckmeister and after Bach, not during the Baroque.

Changes in a piece s scales and harmonies were now overlaid with an added
expressive element: a dramatic change in the quality of sound, depending on
which tones the music revolved around at a given moment.
-----Baroque composers were careful not to overexpose the foreign keys or
chords. Here Isacoff is at the tip of the iceberg regarding its potential
expressivity.

(Of course, this change would only occur on keyboard instruments; strings and
woodwinds were left to pursue their own musical grammars.)
-----Poppycock. Woodwinds always played, along with the strings of the
Baroque, with the ever present keyboard. There is no separate grammar.

Advocates claimed for well temperament the bonus of giving each key its own
character; but for many, subjecting a keyboard to gradations of in-and
out-of-tuneness offered little in the way of musical value.
-----This is ignorance of the value of key character. It shows up the value
for melody ala the Rousseau bit since the ecstatic free nature of melody is
better represented. And more in the way of musical value, not less.

Indeed, Werckmeister himself eventually became an advocate for equal
temperament.
-----This is a lie. Werckmeister supported his chromatic tuning throughout
his entire life, as I have previously exposed on this list.

The German critic and composer Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg who, at the request
of the heirs of Bach, wrote a preface for a new edition of the master's Art
of Fugue offered a terse critique of the well-tempered system in 1776:
Diversity in the character of the keys, he wrote, will serve only to increase
a diversity of bad sounds in the performance.
-----Marpurg was the director of the lottery and a bitter man. He is writing
against Kirnberger (who was supported by CPE Bach and others).

There is controversy to this day over whether Bach preferred equal or well
temperament. Some theorists contend that there is internal evidence in his
music differences in the way he handled different keys to suggest he had well
temperament in mind.
-----Yet there is little by Isacoff to represent the other side fairly.

(One modern scholar insists that he has broken the code of Bach's secret
tuning by unraveling the images in the composer s personal seal, which
contained seven points and five dashes. However, his secret solution
conflicts with statements about temperament made by musicians in Bach's
circle.)
-----Rather crude not to mention Herbert s name. Why not indicate what
conflicts there were with statements in Bach's circle?

There is as much evidence on the other side: Bach's biographer Johann
Nikolaus Forkel reported, for example, that Bach moved so subtly through the
keys that listeners never noticed the change; this suggests equal
temperament.
-----And yet Forkel is one of the clearest that Bach is not equal
temperament. None of this proves that Bach used anything different than
Werckmeister. Only Isacoff is suggesting ET.

His obituary made a similar comment about the artful way in which he tuned
his instruments
-----And tuning Werckmeister is MUCH faster than tuning 12-tET

What s more, Bach used two different spellings of a single key for paired
pieces in his Well-Tempered Clavier, as if to announce that he considered
re-sharp and mi-flat equal.

Just couldn't let this pass, best, Johnny Reinhard

--- In tuning@y..., Afmmjr@a... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_35563.html#35563

> What s more, Bach used two different spellings of a single key for
paired pieces in his Well-Tempered Clavier, as if to announce that he
considered re-sharp and mi-flat equal.
>
>
> Just couldn't let this pass, best, Johnny Reinhard

****Hi Johnny!

You refuted ably all the points except the very last one. I didn't
see your refutation of that. I think one of the "reviewers" refuted
it, too, but I can't remember the argument.

Would you mind posting the "refutation" of that very last point again!

Thanks, man...

jp

I actually had to do these in a rush.

> > What s more, Bach used two different spellings of a single key for
> paired pieces in his Well-Tempered Clavier, as if to announce that he
> considered re-sharp and mi-flat equal.
> >
>

If Isacoff realized that Werckmeister came first, then he might have
considered that D# and Eb were identities largely because of Werckmeister.
After all, Werckmeister was the first to indicate the full circle which would
necessitate chromatic identities.

Okay, Joseph? Anyone?

Best, Johnny Reinhard