AW.: Re: re: TD 411 -- Reply to John deLaubenfels on dissonance...

Just to throw a wrench in the works: Rudolph Rasch, who has the credentials
of a real 12tet skeptic, has studied the whole history of circular
collections predating and including Bach's WTC, came to the conclusion that
Bach had indeed wanted something like 12tet. The question is then "how much
like 12tet?", and the answer probably sounded something like one of "well
temperaments" then being propagated as solutions allowing one to play in all
keys of a 12-tone cycle.

I think that Paul Erlich and I agree that meantone largely defines the
resources and limitations of the common practice harmonic language, and that
there was an initial move towards equal temperament in the late Baroque (the
so-called well temperaments) that did not really become realized in a final
way until the middle of the 19th century. Thus, while there is some Baroque
repertoire -- like the WTC -- that demands something other than meantone (or
meantone plus an active tuning hammer), the music of the Viennese classical
era, which sticks to the best meantone keys, largely remains within the
limits of meantone.