RE: Re: Modality, Tonality, Transpositions, and Tunings (II of II)

Margo wrote,

>the rise of the major/minor key
>system around the epoch of Corelli (say 1680),

I wrote something in a recent post suggesting that the major/minor key
system arose around 1600 with Monteverdi. I could have been gravely
mistaken. I guess I was going by the high-school delineations of
Renaissance=modal=1500-1600, and Baroque=tonal=1600-1750. Can you straighten
me out?

>At the same time, the shift in vertical aesthetics toward a
>fundamental contrast between concordant and boldly dissonant
>sonorities defining a key might make the graduated acoustical
>"dissonance" of the thirds and sixths in a 12-note well-temperament
>a less obtrusive compromise.

Couldn't one argue, though, that the importance of the constrast between
consonance and dissonance in the later style would make it more important to
tune the consonances as consonantly as possible, so as to highlight the
constrast?

>Thus an unequal well-temperament of the kind introduced by
>Werckmeister and very likely applied to Bach's WTC in 1722 not only
>made free transpositions available as a prime element of variety in
>the new key system, but augmented that variety by lending contrasting
>acoustical "colors" to these transpositions of what appeared on paper
>to be identical intervals, scale patterns, and key progressions.

Such a variety is easily acheived in a 19- or 31-tone well-temperament and
thus does not constitute an argument for 12-tone tuning.

>The Manneristic approach offers the radical alternative of a system of
>12 modes and 31 steps, combining modal flexibility, full circulation
>if desired, and chromatic and enharmonic nuances making the meantone
>diesis a high artistic resource as well as a mathematical necessity.

>To conclude, both the meantone keyboard tunings of the Manneristic Era
>(including those for 19-note and 31-note instruments), and the 12-note
>well-temperaments of Bach's era, may reflect as well as reinforce the
>stylistic preferences of these eras. Each system has its own unique
>possibilities.

Given my last point, I believe we need to find an alternative explanation
for the "retreat" to 12 tones. My guess: practical convenience (for the
instrument maker and player).