Buxtehude year

Hi,

those of you, who are interested in good old historical stuff on
tuning and temperament
might find some interesting new items on my website (these items
being in German,
however, and rather new, if 2004 is still new enough – I'll work on
some minor updates
probably later this year).

Quite a bit has to do with Buxtehude - aptly in the Buxtehude year
2007 – and I am
glad to be able to report that the temperament discussion around
Buxtehude can be
based on much new material and many new considerations.

In this respect I also would like to recommend warmly Kerala Snyder's
thoroughly and
extensively updated edition of her ground breaking "Dieterich
Buxtehude. Organist in
Lübeck." which will appear this year both in a German and an English
version. Browse your online-bookstores etc.

Kind regards

Ibo Ortgies

http://www.freewebs.com/ibo_ortgies/index.htm
– Contact, Address, Telephone, E-mail, Skype
– Publications, Dissertation, Lectures, Buxtehude year 2007 ...

Hi,

those of you, who are interested in good old historical stuff on
tuning and temperament
might find some interesting new items on my website (these items
being in German,
however, and rather new, if 2004 is still new enough – I'll work on
some minor updates
probably later this year).

Quite a bit has to do with Buxtehude - aptly in the Buxtehude year
2007 – and I am
glad to be able to report that the temperament discussion around
Buxtehude can be
based on much new material and many new considerations.

In this respect I also would like to recommend warmly Kerala Snyder's
thoroughly and
extensively updated edition of her ground breaking "Dieterich
Buxtehude. Organist in
Lübeck." which will appear this year both in a German and an English
version. Browse your online-bookstores etc.

Kind regards

Ibo Ortgies

http://www.freewebs.com/ibo_ortgies/index.htm
– Contact, Address, Telephone, E-mail, Skype
– Publications, Dissertation, Lectures, Buxtehude year 2007 ...

I'm wondering about your inclusion (at least in the table of contents)
of Telemann's system of intervals... I am extremely sceptical that
this bore any relation to the musical values of intervals in ensemble
playing in practice. There was simply no practicable way for an
instrumentalist to translate the system into audible or playable form
(or vice versa), except in the crude sense that sharps are very
slightly flatter than their enharmonic flats. It is not even clear
whether Telemann knew what interval values, in the sense of tempering,
his system comprised.

In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
Impasse.

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Ibo Ortgies" <ibo.ortgies@...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> those of you, who are interested in good old historical stuff on
> tuning and temperament might find some interesting new items on
> my website (these items being in German, however, and rather new,
> if 2004 is still new enough – I'll work on some minor updates
> probably later this year).

Excellent. Way more than I can digest at the moment.
But excellent.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
voice uses a tempered system.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:
>
>
> I'm wondering about your inclusion (at least in the table of contents)
> of Telemann's system of intervals... I am extremely sceptical that
> this bore any relation to the musical values of intervals in ensemble
> playing in practice. There was simply no practicable way for an
> instrumentalist to translate the system into audible or playable form
> (or vice versa), except in the crude sense that sharps are very
> slightly flatter than their enharmonic flats. It is not even clear
> whether Telemann knew what interval values, in the sense of tempering,
> his system comprised.

Hi

that chapter of my diss will be made available in a couple of weeks, I
hope.

Telemann's system was derived from the then current idea, that the
diatonic semitone consisted of 5 parts ("commas") and the chromatic
semitone 4. That makes 55 parts per octave.
The system as he puts it is a practical description of the (flexible,
adaptive, practical) just intonation as it was - according to him –
"daily" heard.

Nothing points to, that in Telemann's time anybody would have
expected a singer or a violionist to perform the exact pitches (close
to a 1/6-comma division). Reaching pure intervals (as often and as
close as possible) was the goal.

> In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> Impasse.

Exactly

Kind regards

Ibo Ortgies

http://www.freewebs.com/ibo_ortgies/index.htm
– Contact, Address, Telephone, E-mail, Skype
– Publications, Dissertation, Lectures, Buxtehude year 2007 ...

Dear Gene, you seem to have sent this same message about 8 times,
presumably due to some computer bug.

Anyway, by temperament I mean (and I think most other people mean) a
deliberate adjustment of an interval by some fraction of a comma away
from purity. I don't think this happens with unaccompanied voices. By
which I mean singers don't consciously and intentionally adjust
melodic intervals by some fraction of a comma, and don't intentionally
sing impure harmonic intervals.

Of course singers *do* sing impure intervals, but not as a result of a
tempering process.
~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@> wrote:
>
> > In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered systems ...
> > but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> > Impasse.
>
> What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out 81/80,
> however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
> voice uses a tempered system.
>

> Dear Gene, you seem to have sent this same message about 8 times,
> presumably due to some computer bug.

It's a Yahoo groups problem, that's supossedly fixed now.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/y_groups_team

> Anyway, by temperament I mean (and I think most other people mean)
> a deliberate adjustment of an interval by some fraction of a comma
> away from purity.

On tuning-math, the term tends to be used more broadly.

-Carl

I maintain that competent singers will automatically adjust their pitches to match the tuning of any accompaniment.

Here is an example of this happening. It's from a song we are currently working on.

http://www.lucytune.com/mp3/MusingMelody.mp3

All the instruments (some virtual; some real) are LucyTuned.

There have been some digital effects added; yet without making any pitch adjustments to the vocals.

What Lou is singing is from her hearing of the tuning to which she is singing.

Draw your own conclusions.

Charles Lucy lucy@lucytune.com

----- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -----

For information on LucyTuning go to: http://www.lucytune.com

LucyTuned Lullabies (from around the world):
http://www.lullabies.co.uk

Skype user = lucytune

On 29 Mar 2007, at 16:45, Tom Dent wrote:

>
> Dear Gene, you seem to have sent this same message about 8 times,
> presumably due to some computer bug.
>
> Anyway, by temperament I mean (and I think most other people mean) a
> deliberate adjustment of an interval by some fraction of a comma away
> from purity. I don't think this happens with unaccompanied voices. By
> which I mean singers don't consciously and intentionally adjust
> melodic intervals by some fraction of a comma, and don't intentionally
> sing impure harmonic intervals.
>
> Of course singers *do* sing impure intervals, but not as a result of a
> tempering process.
> ~~~T~~~
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@> wrote:
> >
> > > In any case, non-keyboard instruments do not use tempered > systems ...
> > > but the Telemann system does not apply to keyboard instruments.
> > > Impasse.
> >
> > What makes you say that? In common practice music, tempering out > 81/80,
> > however managed, is central. From that point of view even the human
> > voice uses a tempered system.
> >
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:
>
> I maintain that competent singers will automatically adjust their
> pitches to match the tuning of any accompaniment.

While possibly true in some contexts (hopefully *not* so for a choir
rehearsal with piano accompaniment!), this is not relevant to the
discussion, which is what voices and freely-intonating instruments do
in the *absence* of fixed-pitch instruments.

> What Lou is singing is from her hearing of the tuning to which she is
> singing.
>
> Draw your own conclusions.

My conclusion is that singers can produce pure unisons and octaves
with given instrumental pitches quite well, up to the presence of
vibrato and portamento/glissando!!

Since none of the other instruments has a similar timbre/dynamic to
the voice, I can't tell how exactly the vocal intonation matches them.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were many cents of deviation
(particularly in the wobbly humming!) - in this kind of musical
context it's simply inaudible.

Anyway, singing with accompaniment is about matching pure intervals
too. What would happen without any accompaniment at all? Who's going
to try?

~~~T~~~

> > [unaccompanied] singers don't consciously and intentionally adjust
> > melodic intervals by some fraction of a comma, and don't intentionally
> > sing impure harmonic intervals.
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:

> Anyway, by temperament I mean (and I think most other people mean) a
> deliberate adjustment of an interval by some fraction of a comma
away
> from purity.

Around here at least, some people will mean any kind of adjustment
which systematically causes certain commas to act as unisons. Hence,
an adaptive tuning for meantone would be another way of tuning
meantone. The required features of structural harmony are left intact,
which is all that is required.

> I don't think this happens with unaccompanied voices. By
> which I mean singers don't consciously and intentionally adjust
> melodic intervals by some fraction of a comma, and don't
intentionally
> sing impure harmonic intervals.

I think it happens. If you Pierre Boulez and are conducting Schoenberg
choral works, do you allow people to sing pure major thirds?

> Of course singers *do* sing impure intervals, but not as a result
of a
> tempering process.

See above. It would be nice to have measurements, but from what I
hear I think that fifths are likely to be a little flat when
singing unaccompanied Renassiance choral music. In other choral
music, it seems to me I hear sharp major thirds.

Has anyone any measurements of this sort of thing?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@...>
wrote:
>
> If you Pierre Boulez and are conducting Schoenberg
> choral works, do you allow people to sing pure major thirds?

OK, if you choose an example of a composing and performing situation
diametrically opposed to the one where we started the discussion
(Telemann), you might have a point. But actually if I were conducting,
I would look at the function of the interval. Schoenberg does
sometimes write real major chords (rather than just intervals which
happen to contain 4 semitones) and in that case I don't see any
objection to pure thirds. I think Schoenberg's unaccompanied choral
works are not all that much divorced from tonality.

> I think that fifths are likely to be a little flat when
> singing unaccompanied Renaissance choral music.

That may be so in some cases, but I don't think there is any fixed
system involved. If tempering means impure harmonic intervals, then
there is no necessity for it, at least in music slow enough that
singers can listen carefully.

> In other choral
> music, it seems to me I hear sharp major thirds.
>
> Has anyone any measurements of this sort of thing?
>

Maybe you do hear sharp thirds, if the conductors insist on having the
choir imitate the piano or organ, or if the singers never learnt what
a pure third is. In this case the temperament is done by the piano- or
organ-tuner and the singers are aping it, well or badly. But this kind
of choir usually has such a lot of vibrato and general tuning slop
that it would be very difficult to measure anything.

I stand by my belief that well-trained singers in, say, the late
Renaissance through early Classical periods, would not want to give a
major chord a flat fifth or sharp third unless influenced by an
accompaniment.
~~~T~~~

Hi Tom and Gene,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@>
> wrote:
> >
> > If you Pierre Boulez and are conducting Schoenberg
> > choral works, do you allow people to sing pure major thirds?
>
> OK, if you choose an example of a composing and performing
> situation diametrically opposed to the one where we started
> the discussion (Telemann), you might have a point. But
> actually if I were conducting, I would look at the function
> of the interval. Schoenberg does sometimes write real major
> chords (rather than just intervals which happen to contain
> 4 semitones) and in that case I don't see any objection to
> pure thirds. I think Schoenberg's unaccompanied choral
> works are not all that much divorced from tonality.

I myself like to indulge in retuning Schoenberg's music
and try to divine what JI harmonic structures he might
have had in mind while composing it. However, the caution
against this is that Schoenberg himself explicitly spoke
out against musicians conforming their performance to
the "pure" intervals, in a well-known letter to Joseph
Yasser from 1934.

Quoting myself, because i can no longer find the text
of Schoenberg's letter online (it used to be out there
somewhere):

/tuning/topicId_17073.html#17165

>> "[Schoenberg] ... later (in a much-quoted letter to
>> Joseph Yasser) insisted that good musicians did not
>> let their technique be dictated by "natural" (= JI)
>> tendencies, but rather learned how to alter these
>> tendencies to conform to "humanistic" (= 12-tET) art."

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Ibo Ortgies" <ibo.ortgies@...> wrote:

> Hi,

> those of you, who are interested in good old historical stuff on
> tuning and temperament
> might find some interesting new items on my website
http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com/
> (these items being in German,
> however, and rather new, if 2004 is still new enough – I'll work on
> some minor updates probably later this year).
>
> Quite a bit has to do with Buxtehude - aptly in the Buxtehude year
> 2007 – and I am
> glad to be able to report that the temperament discussion around
> Buxtehude can be
> based on much new material and many new considerations.
>
>
> In this respect I also would like to recommend warmly Kerala Snyder's
> thoroughly and
> extensively updated edition of her ground breaking "Dieterich
> Buxtehude. Organist in
> Lübeck." which will appear this year both in a German and an English
> version. Browse your online-bookstores etc.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Ibo Ortgies
>
http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com/

I'd like to update my previous post:

To whom it may concern

[Those who have visited my previous webpage at freewebs.com – please
note the change below!]

My doctoral thesis from 2004 on (translated title:)
"The practice of organ tuning in North Germany in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and its relationship to contemporary musical
practice."
is available for free download on the www (net);
only chapter 9 will come somewhat later.

In the Buxtehude year 2007 it might be worth pointing to chapters 5
(part 2) and 8 (part 2), dealing with Buxtehude and the temperament of
the organs in St. Marien, Lübeck. Moreover contains the appendix
(chapter 11) among others the full transcript of all tuning related
entries, written by Tunder and Buxtehude themselves in the church
account books (1640–1667, 1668–1707 respectively).

Go to
http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com/
and follow the links to the pdf-files.

After 2004 some I have recieved some material which I'll put on the
website later.

Some of the informations I received make it necessary to correct a
handful of places, though
none of the new information is contradicting the information and
conclusions of 2004. On the contrary, I have received from organ
builders, musicologists and organists more material
which confirms the general picture and conclusions.

The thesis is written in German
"Die Praxis der Orgelstimmung in Norddeutschland im 17. und 18.
Jahrhundert und ihr Verhältnis zur zeitgenössischen Musikpraxis."
(Title translated into English: "The practice of organ tuning in North
Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and its
relationship to contemporary musical practice.")
but
there are also an Abstract and a Summary in English, to be found
online and as pdf as well.

Kind regards

Ibo Ortgies

Ibo,

Could you enumerate for us links to any resources on
Buxtehude that are in Engilsh?

Thanks,

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> Ibo,
>
> Could you enumerate for us links to any resources on
> Buxtehude that are in Engilsh?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Carl
>

Hi Carl,

this can be done in a quite short way, because on May 25, Kerala
Snyder's landmark study on Dieterich Buxtehude (1st ed. 1987 will
appear completely updated and enlarged
http://www.boydell.co.uk/80462537.HTM
and you can bet on that she has everything listed in her bibliography

Definitely a book which belongs in the personal library of evberybody
interested in music around 1700.

Interestingly the German translation of the new edition is already
available from Bärenreiter.

Concerning temperament she has revised and dismissed her own
1985-hypothesis of a well-tempered tuning (then possibly Werckmeister)
in Lübeck already by 1683. The reasons for the newer thoughts on
temperament in Lübeck you'll find mainly in chapter 8 of my
dissertation http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com

Kind regards

Ibo

http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "friederich_stellwagen"
<ibo.ortgies@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@> wrote:
> >
> > Ibo,
> >
> > Could you enumerate for us links to any resources on
> > Buxtehude that are in Engilsh?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > -Carl
> >
>
> Hi Carl,
>
> this can be done in a quite short way, because on May 25, Kerala
> Snyder's landmark study on Dieterich Buxtehude (1st ed. 1987 will
> appear completely updated and enlarged
> http://www.boydell.co.uk/80462537.HTM
> and you can bet on that she has everything listed in her
> bibliography
>
> Definitely a book which belongs in the personal library of
> evberybody interested in music around 1700.
>
> Interestingly the German translation of the new edition is already
> available from Bärenreiter.
>
> Concerning temperament she has revised and dismissed her own
> 1985-hypothesis of a well-tempered tuning (then possibly
> Werckmeister) in Lübeck already by 1683. The reasons for the
> newer thoughts on temperament in Lübeck you'll find mainly in
> chapter 8 of my dissertation http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com

Hi Ibo,

Forgive me, but this isn't entirely helpful. I don't have
the book and don't have room for any more books in my house.
And no time to go to the library. And chapter 8 of your
thesis is apparently not available in English.

Maybe you can just tell us the answer: How were Buxtehude's
organs tuned?

Thanks,

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> Maybe you can just tell us the answer: How were Buxtehude's
> organs tuned?

> Thanks,
>
> -Carl

Hi,

OK, some details – I can't do thee whole translation, so everybody who
wants to provide funding ist welcome :-)

Most likely it was meantone, i.e. the standard quarter-comma with pure
major thirds.
As I have presented in my phd-study, there is an abundance of evidence
of the prevalence of that temperament in Northern German organ
building until the 18th century.

Some of the background for the question of organ tuning in Lübeck and
around, Buxtehude and around...

Buxtehude wrote literally thousands of pages of church account entries
in his function as "Werckmeister" (a nice coincidence of his function
and Andreas W's name) of St. Marien.
The full array of these sources from 1534 to the beginning of the 20th
century was not available until the 1990ies, when they were given back
from former Soviet republics. I have seen these all, transcribed all
organ and music related-stuff (these transcriptions and others and
also my collection of 5-6000 digital photos of archival material only
from Lübeck I gave to Kerala Snyder, and last year we worked together
in the archive in Lübeck to look at specific items. Much of all that
is in her book - also one important to a ).

The account books were kept to prove the economy of the church, they
were subject to supervision (and in the old Hanseatic towns like
Lübeck, you can bet on that they counted every penny), they were not
organ building records. Anyhow, Buxtehude was much more specific in
the account book entry than required and mentions many specifics of
important work carried out on the two main organs (51/54 resp. 40 stops!).
The frequent work on the tuning maintenance during his (and before
Tunder's) tenure is also documented in the account books. However, the
entries are all about maintenance of the (existing) tuning, while the
few larger works on the organ show no special treatment of the
temperament either.
If the organ in Lübeck would have been in a non-meantone temperament,
even modified meantone, – totally unusually the region and time – this
would have been bound to make for quite a sensation among the
temperament obsessed authors of thee time and every author could be
expected to have pointed his readers to it ("There in Lübeck, the
organs played by the most famous organist, Herrn Dieterich Buxthehude,
are in such a temperament similar to what I here propose. Go there, if
you can and listen.").
But, no: Werckmeister, Mattheson, etc. – eager on promoting the new
ideas, and knowing Buxtehude personally or being occasionally (seldom)
in some form of contact with him, they all failed to mention that
extraordinary fact? Not very likely.
Werckmeister himself complained about the organ builders (and
organists) not accepting his suggestions – well-temperament was a
completely new thought which didn't catch on in the practice.
Other authors on temperament elsewhere in protestant (Lutheran)
Germany also still much later complained about the slow introduction
of non-meantone temperaments.

The church files on the organs itself for Buxtehude's time., the
contracts, examination reportts etc. are not available (may be still
in one of the ex-Soviet republics) or even not extant anymore.
I have gone through numerous other such files, both from churches in
Lübeck and surrounding, from neighbouring or related towns Hamburg and
many other places, both represented in original and secondary sources.
None of the North German organ building contracts, whether for new
built organs, rebuilts, enlargements, requires a specific temperament
before ca. the middle of the 18th century and then only in a slowly
increasing number.
Only in the last third of the 18th century the contracts usually speak
of the/a "new temperament" (or similar expressions) theen most often
indicating Equal temperament (practically tuned, and according to
skill and/or knowledge of the organ builder).
The contracts until then did not need to specify the temperament,
because there was an old standard (as for example Werckmeister
grudgingly had to admit), quarter-comma meantone temperament.

Examination reports on the other hand were part of the revision of the
enormous expenses any organ building meant for the church – this was
what Werckmeister was aiming at and trying to put on a firm ground
with the Orgel=Probe (1681, 2nd. ed. 1698) which was diirected to
church elders and others who were responsible for spending money on
organs. Werckmeister wnated to raise the quality of organ building, so
that the churches were not "betrayed" by sloppy or even deceitful
organ builders.
In magnitude a new organ or a substantially enlargement or rebuilt was
probably somewhere beetween 5 and 20 times more expensive than today,
mainly due to material costs, while labour was of course cheap.
The examination reports were written after the thorough examination of
an organ. For a large organ this could take 10 days or more (Today it
is usually done in one afternoon - which doesn't help the overall
quality of modern organ building).
These examination reports often contain remarks about tuning. But
again, until the 18th century the kind of temperament is not
mentioned (the conspicuous absence allows again the assumtion of the
standard temperament, which everybody involved would know), while the
reports can go to the level of describing single pipes' tuning and
voicing, i. e. problems which the organ builder then had to fix
according to the contracts usually on his own costs.

Modifications of meantone temperaments, usually assumed by modern
authors to have existed as kind of bridging a gap between meantone and
an assumed early well-temperament period are only mentioned in (few)
extraaordinary case(s), for example of
1) that a sloppy organ builder had not correctly tuned and to prevent
that the organ again would have been out of use for months one made a
correction, so that the temperament became at least acceptable (and
then we find occasionally in the records that it was tuned correctly
some years later), or
2) that the organ was built in a pitch, which didn't fit to the
instruments used with it (and one wonders that the local pitch was not
checked in good time) – this happened to Frans Caspar Schnitger's
organ in Zwolle/Netherlands (which the records indicate might have
been tuned later again to the Dutch standard of temperament until the
late 18th century, which was - little surprising - described in
various sources as quarter-comma meantone).
The available material from large and small cities shows that
modifications were criticized, which allows a cautious conclusion that
the more professional an organ builder was, the more exact he tried to
tune the standard temperament.

There are very small number of unspecified temperament experiments
known in Werckmeister's region between Northern and Central Germany,
but these were either unsuccessful (the case of the not long-lasting
organ built by Thayssner mentioned by W. himself in 1681 to have an
unspecified well-tempered tuning), or were done a generation **after**
his death. In the latter case the organs had to be retuned to standard
meantone, because of arising pitch problems in playing with the local
woodwind instruments.
In any case these few examples were noted – in the contemporary
literature, while there is not one report about non-standard
temperaments from any of the prominent organ/organist's places in
Northern Germany.

Interesting also is that Buxtehude tried to get Arp Schnitger for the
renovation of the large organ in Lübeck Marien.
B. would have known that S's instruments were in meantone: B. played
for example in 1687 S's newly built largest instrument in Hamburg,
Nikolai, which we know was as all Hamburg organs until 1729/1731
meantone tuned (without modification). Only after he heard and played
that instrument, he tried to get S. for this work.

See also my related article in English, which is waiting to be printed:
"A Meeting of Two Temperaments: Andreas Werckmeister and Arp Schnitger."
In Music and Its Questions: Essays in Honor of Peter Williams, ed. by
Thomas Donahue.
Richmond, VA (USA): Organ Historical Society Press, 2007: [ca. 25 pages].

and
the English Summary at the end of

"Über den Umbau der großen Orgel der Marienkirche zu Lübeck durch
Friederich Stellwagen 1637-1641." (On Friederich Stellwagen's rebuilt
of the large organ of St. Mary's in Lübeck in 1637-1641]).
In Orphei organi antiqui, Essays in Honor of Harald Vogel, ed. by
Cleveland Johnson.
Seattle: Westfield Center, 2006: 313-335.
[some Corrigenda and Errata at
http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com/corrigendaanderratavogel-festschrift].

To conclude, though we have no direct evidence for the temperament of
Buxtehude's organs in St. Marien, we can conclude with caution from
plenty of circumstantial evidence that the organs

The discussion of Buxteehude-temperament arose mainly from the
assumtion, that a number of so called "organ works" were assumed
according to our modern interpretative practice to be performance
material. From such material one would then make retroactively
conclusions about the condition of the temperament of an organ. But
already the compasses (requiring F#, G#, sometimes even C#) of many
works which temperament-wise would not be a problem on a meantone
organ didn't fit to most organs of the time which had usually the
short octave CDEFGA both in manuals and pedals – as B.'s organs had
it! Like in many of Bach's pieces, there would not have been a market
for the exrobitant expensive prints or the also expensive right to
copy musical manuscripts (a major income for the organists/teachers).

But in the time of Buxtehude that what we see as "organ repertoire"
was study material for learning improvisation and the art of composition.

I tried quickly to give a overview of some of the topics and
conclusions discussed in my chapteer 8, which deals with thee organ
temperament in the larger Northern German cities
My time is limited, I hope that this will do ...

Best

Ibo

> Most likely it was meantone, i.e. the standard quarter-comma
> with pure major thirds.
> As I have presented in my phd-study, there is an abundance of
> evidence of the prevalence of that temperament in Northern German
> organ building until the 18th century.

That would match up with A. Werckmeister's comments from his
'easy how-to guide' posted here a few months ago.

//
> In any case these few examples were noted – in the contemporary
> literature, while there is not one report about non-standard
> temperaments from any of the prominent organ/organist's places
> in Northern Germany.
//
> I tried quickly to give a overview of some of the topics and
> conclusions discussed in my chapteer 8, which deals with thee organ
> temperament in the larger Northern German cities
> My time is limited, I hope that this will do ...

Thanks!!

-Carl

I continue to be rather puzzled by this line of argument. It seems to
require two types of music. I will call them: 'playing-music', which
is actually played, and de facto restricted to the notes that exist on
the key- and pedal-boards, and has to be either composed or improvised
to sound good in standard meantone; and 'study-music', which is not so
restricted, neither to just the usual notes of the pedal-board nor to
just the chord progressions that (by whatever criterion) sound good in
meantone.

Then the question is, whether in writing or copying 'study-music', one
learns something useful, even though the pedal parts and harmonies of
the 'study-music' would not be much use in performance.

To be more concrete: in playing one must be aware of the notes that
are or not present on the pedalboard and adjust one's musical
imagination to fit. This is part of the skill of the creator of
'playing-music' - but was apparently (if we believe the argument) not
relevant to 'study-music'.

So what was the part played by 'study-music' in the culture of
organists-composers? And, to extend Ibo's argument of the dog that
didn't bark in the night-time (i.e. the argument that any organ about
whose temperament there is no special historical remarks was in
meantone) - is there any historical remark on the distinction between
'playing-music' and 'study-music' as affecting pedal parts and
tonality/modulations?

The only (tangentially) related remarks that come to mind are much
later and in a different context: Heinichen's mentioning of key
characteristics in 'today's good temperaments' as opposed to the 'old
organs'; and CPE Bach's advice to take it easy on the modulations when
improvising at the organ, as opposed to stringed keyboard instruments.

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "friederich_stellwagen"
<ibo.ortgies@...> wrote:
>
> already the compasses (requiring F#, G#, sometimes even C#) of many
> works which temperament-wise would not be a problem on a meantone
> organ didn't fit to most organs of the time which had usually the
> short octave CDEFGA both in manuals and pedals b as B.'s organs had
> it! Like in many of Bach's pieces, there would not have been a market
> for the exrobitant expensive prints or the also expensive right to
> copy musical manuscripts (a major income for the organists/teachers).
>
> But in the time of Buxtehude that what we see as "organ repertoire"
> was study material for learning improvisation and the art of
composition.
>

> Ibo
>