Temperaments for Beethoven and Mozart Sonatas

Could someone please advise me about temperaments to use for Beethoven and
Mozart piano sonatas? Specifically, Beethoven Op. 27 and Mozart K. 331. I am
practicing using a JV-1080 and Justonic Pitch Palette. The tables to use would
be very helpful if they are not a default Pitch Palette tuning.

Thanks for your advice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wesley Anderson Dyring
Violist, Seattle Symphony
Lynnwood, Washington, USA
dyrwes@ix.netcom.com
www.netcom.com/~dyrwes

"The diversity in the human family should be the cause of love
and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend
together in the making of a perfect chord." -- 'Abdu'l-Baha

On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, Wesley A. Dyring wrote:

> Could someone please advise me about temperaments to use for Beethoven and
> Mozart piano sonatas? Specifically, Beethoven Op. 27 and Mozart K. 331. I am
> practicing using a JV-1080 and Justonic Pitch Palette. The tables to use would
> be very helpful if they are not a default Pitch Palette tuning.

Young's or Valotti temperament would be good for Beethoven, not very
daring. I usually use something like Werckmeister III instead, it's more
interesting. Mozart doesn't range into far keys hardly at all, you could
practically get away with mean-tone. Nah, I don't mean that -- temperament
ordinaire, something that circulates, Rameau or Kirnberger or
Werckmeister. I have all the tables, but they're available on-line
somewhere or other -- if nobody tells you where and they're not in the
program, let me know, I'll send you some numbers.

Judy

Wesley A. Dyring writes:
>Could someone please advise me about temperaments to use for Beethoven
>and
>Mozart piano sonatas? Specifically, Beethoven Op. 27 and Mozart K. 331.
>I am
>practicing using a JV-1080 and Justonic Pitch Palette. The tables to use
>would
>be very helpful if they are not a default Pitch Palette tuning.

Greetings,
These composers composed in a time of change, so all temperament choices
must be listened to and decisions must be made. We can look at a
chronological "best guess" as a starting point.
The Kirnberger III is a good place to begin with Mozart. There is a
school of thought that holds Mozart to be a Meantone composer. His keyboard
literature does stay within the bounds one would expect from most of the
meantone tunings. That said, my own opinion is that Mozart sounds much more
satisfying in a Well Temperament. The justness of many thirds in the former
is too bland for my 20th century tastes.
Perhaps it would be most efficient to first compare the Mozart piece
performed on a 1/6 comma meantone and then with a or Kirnberger III. Once
the decision is made between the Meantone or Circulating, then comparisons
between different examples of the genre would be more productive if you still
want to fine-tune.
Beethoven Tonality is also a question. His music holds up beautifully in
all Well Temperaments, and choosing one is really a taste question. The
Thomas Young temperament of 1799 is a marvel of symmetry, and could easily
have represented the ideal which tuners had pursued for the last century. As
such, it is a good beginning temperament for Beethoven anything.
Our recording of the "Pathetique" was done on a Kirnberger, as I wanted
a full syntonic comma to be heard in the 2nd mvt. The harmony makes use of
the full tempering in this passage in a most unrelenting way. The Waldstein
had many places where the tuning seemed to clash, so we used a Young on that
and it was just right, (imho).

Tuners identify temperaments by the following manner. These are the cents
deviation from ET to create the various well temperaments.
Young
A= 0
A#= +6
B= -2
C= +6
C#= 0
D= +2
D#= +4
E= -2
F= +6
F#= -2
G= +4
G#= +2

Kirnberger
A = 0
A#= +8
B = 0
C = +12
C#= +2
D = +4
D#= +6
E = -2
F = +10
F#= +2
G= +8
G# +4

Regards,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.

Dear Ed,

Thank you for your most enlightening post. My Pitch Palette software has what
it calls "Kirnberger's well temperament." Is this the same as Kirnberger III?
It states, "Johann Philipp Kirnberger's one-half syntonic comma temperament of
1771. I and V triads are in just intonation." Pitch Palette defines a scale in
terms of Hertz. It also has a keyboard diagram with a series of fractions. I
have not yet learned enough about tuning jargon to know what they mean,
although I have a few books (it's just a question of having enough time to
study them.) Another temperament available in the software is "La Monte Young
style."

Do you happen to know the composer and conductor Tom Price of Global Music? He
lives in Hendersonville -- it was he that recommended my tuning software which
can be set to any user-definable tuning, historical temperaments or world
scales. (My brother also happens to live in Nashville!)

Anyway, thank you for your help.

Sincere regards,
Wes Dyring

At 04:31 PM 9/14/99 -0400, you wrote:
> The Kirnberger III is a good place to begin with Mozart....
>
>The
>Thomas Young temperament of 1799 is a marvel of symmetry, and could easily
>have represented the ideal which tuners had pursued for the last century. As
>such, it is a good beginning temperament for Beethoven anything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wesley Anderson Dyring
Violist, Seattle Symphony
Lynnwood, Washington, USA
dyrwes@ix.netcom.com
www.netcom.com/~dyrwes

"The diversity in the human family should be the cause of love
and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend
together in the making of a perfect chord." -- 'Abdu'l-Baha

Wesley writes:
> My Pitch Palette software has
>what
>it calls "Kirnberger's well temperament." Is this the same as Kirnberger
>III?
>It states, "Johann Philipp Kirnberger's one-half syntonic comma temperament
>of
>1771. I and V triads are in just intonation."

Greetings,
I don't know but that this must refer to the C and G major triads, plus
the E and B minor triads, which are in complete JI. You pay for this with a
lot of 21.5 cent thirds in the remote keys. Also, the fifths DA and AE are
each 1/2 syn.comma narrow. This is a lot of contrast to be found in one
harmonic toolbox, but there is also beautiful harmony to be found in this
tuning.

Jorgensen writes, (and I agree with) "There has never been any
improvement in temperament practises. Whatever is gained in the direction of
freedom is accompanied by a corresponding loss in tonal contrasts." This
allows a wide range of temperaments to be legitimately considered for most
pieces.
The sign of an overly tempered interval in the art music of Mozart,
Beethoven, etal. is that the tempering calls attention to itself. If the
temperament is perfect, that won't happen, (noted that in ET, nothing will
call attention to itself, but the cost!!!) The emotional effect of the
music should be heightened, but the commas needn't be seen unless called for.

Of course, to many, these considerations will never be weighed, because
they are not listening with educated ears. Thus, they don't hear the
difference, even if the effects are real and working on them as they can
still be more affected by a well tempered version than an ET one without
knowing that a change in tuning is there. I have seen this happen and it
gives me the desire to continue crusading.
Recognizing the effects takes a little practice, but temperament
awareness is a learned skill and the musical public hasn't yet learned it. I
also believe that they will not learn it willingly, as it requires effort, no
matter how slight, and for the great unwashed masses out there, the reduction
of effort has a higher priority than the pursuit of beauty.
Gee, that sounds cynical, but it it what my experience has shown. I and
others involved in this fin de siecle temperament revival have become used to
having musicians be totally oblivious to what we consider profound,
earth-shaking alterations of 20th century ET. But we have an obtuse
obsession with this arcane practise, so we continue.
Ah well, lemme go see if those angels over there want to do the
Hully-Gully before this pinhead gets more crowded than it is....... (:)}}
Regards,
Ed Foote