Short review of Cavallo's "Of the Temperament of those musical instruments..."

The Monthly Review, vol.lxx 01-06.1789, p147
"To what do all these investigations tend?"
http://books.google.com/books?http://books.google.com/books?
vid=OCLC40852044&id=946NER8wVDYC&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146

Clark

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "threesixesinarow" <CACCOLA@...> wrote:
>
> The Monthly Review, vol.lxx 01-06.1789, p147
> "To what do all these investigations tend?"
> http://books.google.com/books?http://books.google.com/books?
> vid=OCLC40852044&id=946NER8wVDYC&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146
>
> Clark
>

Cavallo is interesting not so much as a proponent of 12-ET, as for his
interactions with the English musical establishment at so late a date
(in this case the 1780s) and what this tells us about the 'usual
manner' of tuning for solo keyboard playing.

I vaguely remember an 18th century paper about his tuning ET on a
harpsichord and someone remarking that it made all (presumably major)
keys sound like E major. Taking this in reverse, we can deduce that
the chord of E major was 'usually' tuned somewhat like ET; C major
then probably being notably purer (regarding the thirds), and Ab major
notably worse.
Considering the usual inner workings of irregular temperaments, it
also seems likely that both A major and F major were purer than ET
triads... therefore C# major was likely to have been notably worse.

The biggest uncertainty is of course the degree of inequality. Given
the popularity (in 18th century England) of tuning instructions which
said effectively 'tune the thirds as sharp as the ear can bear and the
fifths as flat as the ear can bear' I think it unlikely that C major
was any 'purer' than in 1/5-comma meantone. Of course there are a lot
of ways to gradate from that round to an ET-like E major...

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "threesixesinarow" <CACCOLA@> wrote:
> >
> > The Monthly Review, vol.lxx 01-06.1789, p147
> > "To what do all these investigations tend?"
> > http://books.google.com/books?http://books.google.com/books?
> > vid=OCLC40852044&id=946NER8wVDYC&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146
> >
> > Clark
> >
>
> Cavallo is interesting not so much as a proponent of 12-ET, as for
his
> interactions with the English musical establishment at so late a
date
> (in this case the 1780s) and what this tells us about the 'usual
> manner' of tuning for solo keyboard playing.

Cavallo has become associated with a music instrument manufacturer,
David Wainwright quotes from Broadwood's records "Carvalo" bought "a
sett of jacks," and at least indirectly through Edward Whitaker Gray,
but I noticed Wainwright seems to overemphasize Gray's role in a paper
on light and acoustics read to the Royal Society in 1800, and the head
clerk at Broadwood's Alfred Hipkins doesn't seem to cite anything.

Clark