GrOningen (NL), not GrOEningen (D)! Re: [tuning] Re: Werckmeister Schnitger Buxtehude organ temperament etc, L

Hi Johnny and all,

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 4/9/03 11:20:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> ibo.ortgies@m... writes:

before I come back to your other points

You are writing about Werckmeister's description of the famous
(1596 or so) David Beck's organ in
GRÖNINGEN
(or if you want a transcription: GROENINGEN).

That place is near Magdeburg, Germany.
Werckmeister supervised in GrÖningen (GrOEningen) the organ
rebuilt (1704), carried out by Christoph Contius.
No wonder that Werckmeister wanted to show off his excellence as
consultant and how well everything was done under his supervision.
It was a confirmation of his previous advice how to examine an
organ, published as Orgelprobe in 1681 and revised and enlarged in
1698 - and certainly helped spreading his fame and the selling of
his books.
However, he remained always vaguely, when it came to the actual
temperament of organs.

However, Arp Schnitger never worked on the organ in Gröningen
(or: GrOEningen) of which I didn't talk in my previous
mail:

Schnitger worked in the much larger Dutch town, which is today
famous for its Schnitger-tradition:
GRONINGEN.

Mixing up the two places occurs mainly because our languages don't
use the same letters for the same (or different) phonetics
O and Ö is quite a difference. And english typewriter's and early
computer systems didn't have these signs, of course, because they
are not necessary in English.

Btw, with GrÖningen (GrOEningen) we are sometimes leaving now the
North German area to the "middle-German" Thuringian and Saxon
tradition, which - in a few documented examples - turned earlier
to well-temperaments and equal temperament. But note, that also
that was still seldom in these regions, as the report on Bach
playing the Trost-organ in Altenburg mentions as late as the late
1730s.
(I will take a few hints here from the useful dissertation
of my colleague Johan Norrback, available under
"Publications" from our website
www.goart.gu.se)

>>Unfortunately I can't help disagreeing in several of your points,
>>because the source situation is different but clear, or the
>>evidence points into other direction.

Which I will confirm in this mail

> Hi again, Ibo. Thanks for all that data. We do have
> some different sources.

I have plenty of archiv material plus loads of books (lots
facsimiles and fotos of prints) in my working room. Then of course
what modern researchers published. Amongst others this material
includes published archival material, especially valuable a wealth
of examination reports, and other archival material about the
actual status of an organ, right after the organ builder was there
- etc. i'm busy with putting all this together, so that you might
find my big book on available on our website some time late summer
next year.

What is your material?

> As you said, you don't need to bring Werckmeister into your
> dissertation.
> I would hate to upset your track to graduation. ;)

Thanks for the concern - just wonder why I should not know, what
belongs to my diss. topic or not.
Why not Werckmeister or other temperament proposers, whose ideas
were discussed or published in the region (Northern Germany, takig
also related areas) and the time (17th, 18th centuy) which I'm
doing my research in.
And the claimed connections between Schnitger, Buxtehude,
Werckmeister are reason enough. Anyone in the field would blame me
rightly for failing to discuss it (and I would blame myself, too)

> However, there are other sources. Have you checked
> Werckmeister's own report of 1705 about the Groningen
> temperament change? It has just been published
> in English.

[Didn't find it - can you provide us with the bibliographical data)

I can only hope that the translators didn't mess it up further
about (wrong) GrOningen, instead of (right) GrÖningen.

It is however always more than advisable to read the facsimile.
Many Germans nowadays misinterpret old German, because many words
or idiomatic phrases changed meaning, sometimes slightly,
sometimes more. Still some sentences, words might not be
understood at all. I always wonder how much translators are aware
about things like this.

The reprint is:
Werckmeister, Andreas. Organum Gruningense redivivum. Quedlinburg
and Aschersleben, 1705. Reprint, ed. Paul Smets. Mainz 1932.

Werckmeister does not specify any precise temperament to which
that organ had been retuned. However he mentions only precisely
that the organ was tuned before in the "old, so called Praetorian"
temperament (i. e. meantone)

> Werckmeister doesn't mention other people enough (everyone
> he does mention is listed in Walther's Lexicon).

not organ builders, but organists, and from a long gone past seen
from Werckmeister's view in 1705, or even more from Walther's
later view (his Lexicon is from 1732):

Werckmeister mentions the 53 (!) *organists* from all over
Germany, taking part in the examination of the Gröningen-organ,
when it was new, finished by David Beck in 1596! This event -
prbably the largest organist convention before the 20th century,
happened thus 109 years before W. published his book at the
occasion of the rebuilt of thet organ etc., during which it got a
new temperament. The retuning in Gröningen which Werckmeister
vaguely describes was a single case, not representative at all for
the temperament practice. Not even in W.'s region - as several
known examples up to the late 1730s show.

In Walther's region (Weimar/Thuringia - different traditions
everywhere, not to be mixed up) there are reports of some
different temperament approaches in practice - here and there.
Even if this is contrary to the North Contrary, it must be seen
still as a marginal development, as nothing points to to a sort of
a big rush, that every town church soon would have one of the
"new" temperaments.
For a long time during the 18th century examination reports of
organs just (actually) retuned point to the "new" temperament. If
it is somewhat specified, then much more often Neidhardt than
Werckmeister. But if there are specification of the "new"
temperaments in the reports, then it is most often "Equal
temperament", or "the new equal temperament" etc.

In the North the same development starts and can be seen between
ca. 1760-1830 (+- 20 years) - since it came so late in the North,
Werckmeister's ideas came often "too late" for retuning the still
meantone organ - most often we can find indications of retunings
from meantone directly into ET (with all the organ building
problems I sketched above)

> The organ builder Wender of Muhlhausen preferred to use
> Werckmeister's tuning.

Nothing proves that - It is an assumtion on shiny chronological
and geographical coincidences, somewhat similar to the arguments
which put Werckmeister and Buxtehude together to argue for that
Buxtehude adopted Werckmeisters's temperament ideas.
If so then Buxtehude must have felt unhappy for 26 years
1681-1707, because the records don't allow to conclude anything
like any retuning. Even worse nothing else points to that the most
important North German musician of his time managed to secretly
have retuned his two organs (one of them belonging to the largest
organs existing) in one of the proudest North European cathedrals,
so that it escaped everyone's attention, not at least the
temperament "nuts" of the early 18th century, who even visited Lübeck.

> Ahle, Bach's predecessor in Muhlhausen, was indeed freinds
> with W. (including things about W. in his prose and
> voluminous writings). It would appear

It would, yes, and might appear so to some.
But the historical documents available until now on Wender do not
back up the assumtions enough, to conclude which exact temperament
he might have used.

> that Bach walked into an already tuned Werckmeister

Nothing is known, which sufficiently would confirm this or support it.
Do you know what the examination reports from these organ specify
about the temperament?

> organ in both Arnstadt and Muhlhausen. No less
> than Kuhnau spoke of Wender's insistence on Werckmeister
> tuning.

Please provide a reference for this: when did Kuhnau state this,
and which exactly of Werckmeister's several temperaments does he
refer to?

Kuhnau worked in Leipzig, - around 1700 this was scarcely related
to the - quite different - organ building practice of Northern
Germany which I'm researching.

If you can show th evidence for your statement by any reference,
then it would point to a signficant change in Kuhnau's position
towards temperament: in 1717 he complains to Mattheson in a
letter about the organ builder's Wender's and Silbermann's
temperament practice, that they do not use the "exact temperament"
of Neidhart (i. e. ET, as Neidhart specified it, from his other
suggestions). According to Norrback's research "it is not clear [from the sources] what [temperament] they [these organ builders]
used instead."

And the Silbermann researcher Frank Harald Gress pointed to
Silbermann's usual application of some form of meantone
temperament (probably 1/4-comma-meantone, or very close) in
Silbermann's earlier decades (the later statement from Sorge about
a 1/6-komma-temperament, must be seen in the biased light of the
"Temperaturen-Streit" of the later 18th century! Sorge's
description can't simply be taken literally for Silbermann's
practice, as confirmed by other documents).

Whatever temperament Wender actually might have applied, is not
known or documented to my knowlegde. The recent Bach-Jahrbuch
article by Marcus Rathey unfortunately creates the impression from
mere chronological and geographical coincidences and reasoning,
without any proof and double checks from the organ's history.
And once same old soup again here, too: How much does an assumed
friendship between Ahle and Werckmeister tell about Wender's (not
documented) actual organ temperament in Mühlhausen? Nothing, of
course - it is an interpretation by connecting
non-temperament-related items. May be - may be not.

> About winds and strings, we have just completed performances
> of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #2

(s. Peter Schleuning's brilliant recent study:
http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomita/bachbib/review/bb-review_SchleuningBra.html
)

> in Werckmeister III in a beautiful intonation.

This is certainly a great and today unusual achievement (only a
few, and not always the best known ensembles, perform in an as
much as possible 'impeccable' intonation).

But - yours and your ensemble's skills and musicianship aside - I
don't see what does it tell about temperament practice back in ca.
1710-20 in keyboard instruments (as opposed to free intonationg
instruments)?
For an free intonating instrument it is no advantage from another
circulating temperament, since they only have to play pure above
the lowest - as pure as possible: in practice that means, +-3 to
5 cents around the pure (!) interval above the lowest note, which
makes for that purpose all well-temperaments marginal in difference!

And what at all has it to do with church organs, which were not
the continuo instrument for any of Bach's "Brandenburg" concerti,
I don't grasp.

> There is no difficulty retuning -- at least to us moderns.

Sure, of course a harpsichord is easily retuned - as the old
sources mention, frequently. And they make frequently differences
what a diferent temperaments is used to. There are differences for
stringed keyboard instruments as opposed to the organ. The
discussion of temperaments concerning the tuning of the ensemble
accompanying instruments difers, too and splits up again in
looking differently at organs (for accompaniment) or stringed
keyboard instrumenst (for accompaniment) - not to take fretted
instruments, for which Et or close-to-ET is reported way earlier.

But an organ, was of course difficult to retune. Only to convince
the church Elders to pay the money, could be the first part of the
work, with which a project might have failed. As I said before:
large, public payed organs, serving a function in a "conservative"
society and liturgy were no lab for unprecedented temperament
experiments, to change a ca. 250 years tradition

Not only do I have plenty of descriptions and contemporary remarks
on the extreme difficulties in tuning organs back then, but also
the time, as represented in payments to bellows treader by working
days, specifying btw often that they pumped for tuning this-long
and for voicing that-long (so this can be discerned in some very
important examples).

Technically the problems could be
- more unstable wind supply or at least flexible w.s.
- over months of tuning the temperature in the (unheated)
church would raise or fall considerably, leading to large
differences of pitch - not to talk about the problems
of a (in January I visited a large unheated Hanseatic
church in Germany - it was ca. 4° C)
- the long exhausting process of taking out a pipe, treating it
by cutting, putting it back, waiting some minutes until it is
cooled down, trying, and if it was not fine then start again
- trial and error
- change of scaling through cutting pipes (which might lead
to higher cut ups, from which a wind pressure raising might
be regarded necessary, that again can lead to a revoicing
... (the chain of domino bricks starts ...)
- unprofessional unstable tuning by pressing pipes together
or widening the pipe ends with the fingers
etc.

> The string merely follow the harpsichord. The winds today
> use scotch tape to alter the positioning of the keys and
> the shape of the tone holes.

Today, tape is may be a solution - But, contradicting is, that I
have not seen any good baroque oboe player doing something like
that to his instrument. And what kind of tape would you suggest
for the practice back then? I thought it is an invention of the
20th century?

I certainly can imagine that you were part of a great performance
of concerted ensemble music, which you mention. But again, how
exactly could an argumentbe drawn from your recent performance for
the historical knowledge or narrowing in to the temperament
practice (not theories, which were published, without that we know that they were practised) in North German church organs from the
documented evidence, as reported for example in examination and
other status reports etc.

> You work in abstract confirms the use of quarter-comma meantone in
> Holland.
> But it does not mitigate against the influence Werckmeister had

As I previously stated, my abstract of F.v.Wijk's and mine
25-page-article on the Alkmaar-temperament history ad the article
itself, does not refer to Werckmeister, as he was not relevant
for that specific topic.

> on other creative types in an earlier generation. Take
> a close look at Walther's Lexicon

1732
it is everyday on my table ...

> for all the usage of Werckmeister.

of which Walther doesn't write even a tiny bit!

> He's all over the place.

Werckmeister's name in Walther's Lexicon? Yes
- but not one hint on any Werckmeister-temperament, no example of
any organ thus tuned is listed by Walther. So Werckmeister's
frequent name being dropped by Walther doesn't mean anything,
concerning the organ tempering practice.

> And take a listen to Armin Shoof's

Schoof, the organist of the Jakobi church Lübeck
- he is a friend of mine, and we are here happy in GOArt to bea
able to cooperating with himn and his parisch St. Jakobi, in an
EU-project from our institution to try to save the fabulous small organ (1467/1637) in Lübeck, St. Jakobi, from lead corrosion which
started to destroy the oldest layer of the pipework (1467)

> performances of Buxtehude on Lubeck's St. Jacobi Kirche.

What is your opinion:
How does a (Schoof's) performance *today* tell us anything about
the actual temperaments to be found in (North German) organs in
Buxtehude's and Werckmeister's time?
And even if the Werckmeister temperament would unexpectedly have
been heard from the organ in St. Jakobi in around 1700 in the
organ(s) in St. Jakobi, it would not mean, that the organ(s) in
the neighbouring church St. Marien, where Buxtehude worked, must
have had a well-temperament. Since, however, nothing points to a
Werckmeister temperament in Lübeck-Jakobi in Buxtehude's time,
this example goes to the big bulk of unlikelinesses.

> I will look into the St. Jacobi/Hamburg info again...

The Reinitzer-book published at Hamburg: Christians, 1995
contains some interesting info on the temperament discussion there
in 1992-1993, and Jürgen Ahrend's comments on the findings in the
pipework which was pure meantone. He has confirmend this to me in
several conversations, already during the time, when he restored
the instrument (which got then a modified 1/5 p.comma meantone
temperament for some reasons - but that's a long story).

> it was something in Walther, but I don't remember where.

Yes, thanks - would be nice if we could see evidence from Walther,
which would be really something new!

Walther's Lexicon-entry on Schnitger for example is very short and
fails therefore to mention any specific organ of Schnitger, not to
speak of temperament, at all (in connection to Schnitger).
Also Walther's entry on temperament is a short remark about
terminolgy, pointing to handful of literature, among them
Werckmeister, but also Printz, who was a true proponent of
menatone temperament in organs. But I can't find any place in
Walther's lexicon, where he explicitly describes any temperament,
neither theretical, nor that it is to be found here or there.

Did I overlook something? - Of course this could happen.
I would therefore appreciate if you could bring to the light where
exactly ("entry", page nrs. in the facsimile) Walther mentions
- Hamburg St. Jakobi
- Werckmeister's temperament (and which of those)
And Walther's quite long entry on Werckmeister doesn't state
anything of what we have discussed here, either (except of a list
of Werckmeister's publications).
Ah, and he has an entry about Neidhart, too - but nothing on N.'s
temperaments. Neither anything concrete in any of the entries of
other temperament-authors.

So I'm really interested to know, where you found the specific
info in Walther!

> Ibo: Btw, watch out: the authors in the regions concerned, from
> Werckmeister onwards (may be before already?) do not mix up
> well-temperaments and ET! The are clear and well aware about this
> point!

> I do agree with this. If fact, this is the root of Werckmeister's
> Paradoxical Discourse: scales equally useable,

Usable for what? Organs (in general) , How is "usable" more than
just a mere personal preference by Werckmeister, you, me or any
other individual - back around 1700, as well as now?

> but not identical.

> best, Johnny Reinhard

Thanks

best regards
Ibo Ortgies