Evidence Part 2:[tuning] Re: Werckmeister, Schnitger Buxtehude etc.

Cont.

JR: Please be sure to share this with Armin Shoof.

Ibo: (Schoof again).
No, share you preferences with him, if you like.
I have frequent talkks with him and we agree and he understands my
points very well. On his invitation I'm going to present on my
research there end of June.

JR: Pretty rude, here. I do not have his e-mail. Nor do I have the ease in
speaking German that he requires. We met a number of years ago, after an
afternoon practice. I didn't hear the smaller organ at the time so didn't
hear the WIII tuned music until I returned home. Returning again, I got the
new album, with all the German talking on it. This music is playing much
more lightly, and more convincingly. I was sold.
You seem deaf to the difference. It's not my place to diagnose the reason
why.

>> Ibo: 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.

JR: It is Buxtehude's music that determines that the organ had a
well-temperament. If the organ must play notes outside of the meantone
compass, then the organ must be in well-temperament. Get your knows into the
music scores.
Ø JR: Once again, it appears there is some disconnect
> here.

Ibo: You might have noticed, meanwhile, that I always try to avoid to
connect items, which don't show any sign of a connection. That's
good scientific habit, which keeps one rather much free from
disturbing own preferences ...

JR: Yes, and a musician connects things together. And this is not science.
It is music.
Ø But besides the listening, which is understandably
> suspect to you,

can't you read?

What do you think, how I tuned the instruments for the Tomkins
recording? I do not use electronic aids, just a simple tuning fork.
When you have trained your ear so that you can do similar
requirements, then let us talk again.

JR: Hi, I'm back. However, instead of listing anything here, I suggest you
look my name up on Google. We have more in common that you thought. I don't
even use a tuning fork! I get an A=440 from a discovered multiphonic (as
long as the instrument is warmed up). Everything is relative from there.

> Buxtehude wrote a poem dedicated to Werckmesiter. It
> came in 1702, later than the 1691 Musicalische Temperatur.
> He must have been a friend to write a stanza poem
> in Werckmeister's honor. He must have been satisfied with
> what Werckmeister's tuning had to offer. And he must
> have had the time to fully decide if it was of
> substantial importance to the creation of his own
> music.

Ibo: He must this, he must that - nothing better to offer?

JR: Yes. Werckmeister gave original Buxtehude manuscripts to Werckmeister,
who then gave them to J. G. Walther. This is described in a letter of 1729
by Walther. Doesn't that show some friendship between Buxtehude and
Werckmeister? All those manuscripts?

Walther: "The ones of the former I received mainly from the late Mr.
Werckmeister, in Mr. Buxtehude's own hand and in German tablature…

Ibo: However, I pointed to the possible irony in Schnitger's poem
already, which he wrote for the same volume of Werckmeister's. And
it was Schnitger, whom Buxtehude wanted to carry out the
renovation of the large organ in St. Marien.
This Schnitger, who did not subscribe to W.'s new temperamentS, - This
Schnitger, for whom in each single case only meantone temperament can be
proven, was the choice for Buxtehude. Finally, the work was carried out by
Otto Diedrich Richborn from Hamburg, Schnitgers concurrence in Hamburg, where
both had their workshop. Nothing points to, that Buxtehdue wanted an
instrument, that would have noticebly to everyone, different than the
"meantone ocean" around him.

JR: The ocean has many critters in it. There were other than quarter comma
meantone, no?

How about this which I found on the Internet:
+Subject: Temperament From: "Bob Elms" <elmsr@albanyis.com.au> Date: Sun, 04
Nov 2001 06:06:33 -0800 I realize that the subject of temperament has been
well aired, but some recent bulletins have touched on the question of when
equal temperament became the norm. >From correspondence in Organists Review
came the following: ".. the question of the temperament used by Jurgen Ahrend
in his restoration of the Schnitger St Jacobi organ.. it was there (in a past
OR) that one read that, in certain temperaments,'one had to endure
considerable harshness ' in some major keys." It went further that "on the
advice of Andreas Werckmeister in 1688 that instrument had been tuned to
equal temperament, and that his friend JS Bach himself had championed this
system, in the face of reluctant organ builders".

Then there is the Ahrend Werckmeister-tuned organ in Berkely, California:

"St. Joseph of Arimathea Anglican Theological College, in Berkeley,
California, is the seminary of the Anglican Province of Christ the King, a
nationwide body of Christian Churches dedicated to maintaining traditional
Episcopalian faith and practice in the United States. Founded in 1979 to
serve the Anglican Province of Christ the King, Saint Joseph's serves the
need of the Province to educate men for the priesthood and otherwise prepare
them…" etc.

BTW, I had heard that the St. Jacobi Kirche in Hamburg was tuned by Ahrend
into Werckmeister III by a prominent German composer. So, if we are
mistaken, it would be good to know.

The connections of Werckmeister tuning to St. Jacobi would seem to be made by
Johann Mathesson in his Grosse General-Bass-Schule, p. 23, in a chapter
(XLVI) devoted to Werckmeister's tuning. Maybe you could help us with a
translation?

"…und etwas von der Jacobi-Orgel/auch von der Menschen-Stimme/ dass sehr
trosstlich ist."

Further on, Matheson mentions that Werckmeister's "Temperatur" was used for
the Groeningen Orgel.

> Walther received his Buxtehude material directly from
> Werckmeister, personally, in Halberstadt. That Bach
> walked to spend months with Buxtehude's music is also
> significant.

Ibo: For what? For what temperament in which organ exactly is it
significant?

JR: How about in St. Martini in Halberstadt where Werckmeister was organist
for 10 years? This is also the same city usually credited with introducing
the very keyboard that Werckmeister III tuning is designed for. Is this only
irony, or a complement by Halberstadters that Werckmeister had the right
stuff for their organ?

Ø Rather than pine about what we cannot know,

Ibo: As you do by guessing around on no evidence or worse on mere
personal preference

JR: There is not only one way. I am connecting the dots that you barely
identify. (Now, don't get too angry J)

>> Ibo: But I can't find any place in Walther's lexicon,
>> where he explicitly describes any temperament, neither
>> theoretical, nor that it is to be found here or there.

> JR: It is traditional in the Thuringian/Harz tradition
> not to quote the work of other people when their works
> are published.

Ibo: Strange, but Walther's Lexikon (he was from Thuringia) does
exactly what you deny: It constantly quotes and makes references -
however, not to temperaments - sometimes it quotes.
I could easily display hundreds of printed matter from Thuringia
in the 17th and 18 century in which quoting as everywhere else in
a circle of 2000 kms around Thuringia, was done extensively.
Especially, when honoring someone else's work...

JR: You misunderstand. When Thuringian Praetorious wrote about the
organology of instruments, it was enough for later Thuringias to refer to
Praetorious for any serious inquiry on the subject. After Werckmeister
completed his treatise on temperament, it was to Werckmeister that other
Thuringians (such as Walther) would point. It was to Walther that we have
the first German music encyclopaedia. It is with Bach that we have the
music, itself. None of these good Thuringians felt it wise to out do the
others who had historical precedent on particular musical topics. It's just
an observation.

Ibo: Since you want to write a book about Bach's tuning, you will do
better in checking some sources from time to time, so that you
avoid all this easily falsifiable statements.

JR: I'm an American dealing with ancient German jargon in a country that was
only recently (historically speaking, the enemy). Considering my efforts up
to date, you really owe me an apology. Rather than embrace my efforts to
explore this "murky" area of musical scholarship, you have been dismissive
and condescending. I admit to some of the same, especially regarding the
field of "musicology," which you need not take personally.

Ø There has been a veil place over Werckmeister and his
> importance to the music that followed.

Ibo: Which every single modern music dictionary will disqualify as
false staememt, as well as the scientific research on Werckmeister
himself.

JR: Yes, you must be right, it must be a false "staememt." The very fact
that there is no image of Werckmeister's face is a kind of veil.

> In the English
> and Dutch speaking work, little has made a proper impact.

Ibo: No, not true either - The influential Werckmeister publication
(ttransl. by J.W. Lustig) i mentioned already. Then the pioneers
of HIP like Leonhadt, but also their followers Ton Koopman, Bob
von Asperen, plus the work of many organ builders show that
nowadays Werckmeister is used in performance - may be more than in
his days. However, in organs /restorations or "style" copies) it
is almost certainly overused

JR: You have finally stated your bias. Good!

Thanks for your attention
best regards
Ibo Ortgies

It's been swell.

Johnny Reinhard