Organ stuff, Neidhardt 1724 original

I would actually quite like to know to what extent the thirds on the
Taylor and Boody Op41 draw together. It seems that this was a feature
of Baroque organs.

By the way, I consulted today an original copy of Neidhardt 1724. The
main result is that the usual formulation of 'Neidhardt #3', the 'Big
City' temperament, is wrong. Thanks to Barbour's typo, almost everyone
had the G a twelfth of a comma too low.

The correct version is:

C 2 2 2 A 1 0 1 F# 1 1 0 Eb 1 1 0

with 'Sorge matrix'

9 8 8 8
8 8 7 6
4 5 6 7

Funny isn't it - the guy invented some of the best circular
temperaments ever and he's been misquoted for half a century.
Suddenly, his #3 becomes a viable tuning rather than a curiosity.

Not to mention that this makes Sorge 1758 virtually a straight lift:
his matrix is

8 8 8 8
9 8 7 6
4 5 6 7

Spot the difference!

~~~T~~~

Much appreciated on this, Tom, thanks! I'll notify Dr Lindley of his necessary correction, and credit you; also I'll add it to my "errata" page, fixing whatever I can on my web site.

I'm also making the correction on my lecture notes and audiovisuals for later this month. Great timing to find this!

This is now the second temperament in Lindley's "Well-Tempered Clavier" article in _New Grove_ that's wrong in the chart, as carried forward from his earlier article elsewhere. The other one with a problem is the Neidhardt Dorf/Village, as Paul Poletti and Johan Norrback pointed out about a month ago.

Norrback's book has both of these correctly in print already--the Village and the Big City--because he too went back to the original instead of trusting Barbour's & Lindley's various publications. I didn't catch this change as his book simply presents the correct versions, not remarking that these are repairing the 20th century literature.

As for the Sorge 1758 being "almost a straight lift"--yes, but it doesn't hurt or aid my case overall, just giving one gain against a different loss. What if Sorge got the idea for that particular tweak from Bach (whose tuning expertise and taste Sorge had already cited several times earlier), learning that it works very well to have E-G# stronger than Ab-C? The tweak being, raise the note G# one notch, if he started from that now long-out-of-print (by 1758) "Big City". Neidhardt himself had already replaced it with a different Big City formulation, in 1732.

I'd suggested in the article that perhaps Sorge was blending Bach's Leipzig layout and equal; now it's even better to suggest that he was blending Bach's and the Neidhardt 1724 Big City...or blending all three. Take the distinctive feature from Bach, and plug it into Neidhardt, voila.

Brad Lehman

> From: "Tom Dent" <stringph@gmail.com>
>
>By the way, I consulted today an original copy of Neidhardt 1724. The
>main result is that the usual formulation of 'Neidhardt #3', the 'Big
>City' temperament, is wrong. Thanks to Barbour's typo, almost everyone
>had the G a twelfth of a comma too low.
>
>The correct version is:
>
>C 2 2 2 A 1 0 1 F# 1 1 0 Eb 1 1 0
>
>with 'Sorge matrix'
>
>9 8 8 8
>8 8 7 6
>4 5 6 7
>
>Funny isn't it - the guy invented some of the best circular
>temperaments ever and he's been misquoted for half a century.
>Suddenly, his #3 becomes a viable tuning rather than a curiosity.
>
>Not to mention that this makes Sorge 1758 virtually a straight lift:
>his matrix is
>
>8 8 8 8
>9 8 7 6
>4 5 6 7
>
>Spot the difference!