Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re;Beethoven's tuning

Mark wrote:
>> what tuning would Beethoven have had his Broadwoods tuned
> to
>> There are some passages in the sonatas that don't make sense either in
12ET or in some of the meantone tunings. Did german tuners ca. 1800 use a
cyclic temperament, he wonders?

Monz replied,
>Beethoven played organ, violin, and viola quite a bit as a youth,
> so it's very likely that he was exposed to meantone a lot in
> those days. as for his piano tuning, the most likely tuning would have been
> a "circulating / irregular / well-temperament".

Well, I certainly agree! After tuning a bunch of pianos in a variety of
era-plausible temperaments, I am still finding new things, depending on the
music. Lately, I have been listening to Beethoven on a 1/7 comma meantone,
(9.3 cent and 23.5 thirds, but nothing in between), as well as the Kirnberger
and Young on our CD's. The "Pathetique" was chosen for its middle Ab
section, which on the Kirnberger creates a full syntonic comma in the
harmony, giving a very specific example of what 21 cent thirds are all about.
On the modern piano, it is a pretty dreary sound back there. Is that bad?
Or is that good? These are emotional questions, and in the case of the
well-tempered Beethoven CD, the Pathetique sonata is the one that created the
most feedback, and it was the expressiveness of the second mvt. that was most
often mentioned. As a piano tuner, it raised the hair on the back of my
neck, but pianists seem to dig right in there and revel in the pathos. go
figure.
One eye-opener has been going back to the Werckmeister Chromatic for
Beethoven. There is a smoothness there that seems out of proportion to the
contrasts in the temperament, and indeed, the Young seems to be a little more
agressively tempered for much of Beethoven's harmony. It all depends on how
it is played.
An artist did point out that there were numerous indications that
Beethoven was using the normal order of temperament to emphasize a point,
ie, progressions that went from C to Cm, C#m, C#, E7 then B !! The way LVB
voiced this passage (it somewhere in op. 109), this series of modulation
crawls right up the dissonance latter, finally pitching you over the edge
where anything is going to feel like a resolution.

>my own opinion
> is that this was most likely Kirnberger III, but it could have
> also been Valloti/Young or Werckmeister III, or something similar.

And this brings up a particular point, made more focussed by Bill
Sethares illustrations of timbre having such effect as it does. Tuning a
Graf copy in a Young for a recording project recently, I was struck by how
much less contrast there seemed to be between keys than what I had become
accustomed to with modern pianos. The symmetry was still apparent, but I
felt I had pastels instead of oil paints. The project was a Schubert
recording, the texture seemed to be appropriate so we used it.
This leads me to believe that pianos today could most profitably be
somewhat free in temperament matters. Any of the conventional circulating
temperaments that roughly follow Werckmeister's general style will provide, I
believe, superior listening experiences to that found in ET. This is not
only true when used for music composed in the general sphere of influence as
we might imagine to have existed in 1800 Vienna, but much current music.
I don't think all those centuries of Meantone's bedrock influence
disappeared in the face of Mersenne's and Werckmeister's proposals,and the
well-temperaments didin't stray too far from it. That Kirnberger is a 1/4C
tuning in disguise, "just move them black notes over a little and we can all
get round the circle".
There is a lot of 18th century music that "fits" perfectly well in
meantone tunings, but also provides a very fine listening experience in the
more complex colors of something like a Kirnberger,Young, Prelleur or the
like. How many distinguishable steps of color are necessary to fully express
the composers intenetions? The only way to know is to experience the
differences, talking will not do it.
So, I think that for a tuner, the question is, which tuning maximizes
the emotional impact and engagement that the music can create? Some
inescapable factors are artist, instrument,venue, crowd, room. This is
tuning by sensual parameters and is VERY dependant on initial conditions.
Too strong for the pianist and their concentration is stolen from musical
creation because of something amiss. To strong for the listener and the
experience is one of unexpected assault from the "color" (which the noviate
will, to his dying day, call "out of tuneness"). The art of temperament
today is the art of giving the new listener enough of a dose to create an
addiction to tonal art, but not so much that you scare them away before they
are hooked. Simple!

The choice between the WT's has no right or wrong after a modern piano
has been substituted for the more authentic model. In comparaison to the
early pianofortes, with modern pianos, the tonal contrasts are being
presented in abstract flavors anyway. Some like it hot, others not,
everybody has their own idea of how much is too much and there will always
be some listeners that think too much is just right.

>i've been working on a webpage with an mp3 and analysis of
> the famous first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata" in
> Kirnberger III ... hope to be able to upload it sometime this
> month.

Great. I now have 3 MP3's of the Mozart Fantasie from "6 Degrees" in
three tunings on a Steinway. They are 6.8 Megs each, is there any convenient
way of finding them a home that others could download from? The record
company has given me the go-ahead of posting them as free downloads, I just
don't have a place to upload them to. Open to suggestions.
Regards,
Ed Foote
Nashville, Tn.

Re;Beethoven's tuning

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