Alas

We had some pretty special concerts this year. Paul Erlich was a great
soldier in my Odysseus, in Boston.

But somehow I feel disappointment that it is not possible for those on this
list to attend. Even the material on the AFMM website, and the PITCH cds,
make little impression. At least, this is the impression sense from responses.

This List is about many things, often controversial. But ultimately it
centers on music. Neil and Paul have made comments in this direction, as has
Kraig. For the record, the only real reason for any of the things said on this
List is that it makes a dent in music (and hopefully a positive dent).

I believe only listening to music can bring out musical truths. But if a
tree falls in the forest (as in a concert) and no one hears it (at least
proportionally), it doesn't make much of a sound. For this reason we spent more
money on recording and videography than ever before. The material is intended
to resonate still further.

After the recent concerts, I feel on rather secure ground stating that
Brahms's keyboard works are meant for Vallotti tuning. So is Tartini's music with
keyboard (at least's as demonstrated by "Devil's Trill"). Mozart is
unbelievably secure in Werckmeister III (quite foreign a description than one would
gather by only reading Brad's strident reactions. We don't hear his
imperfections.). Haydn is seamless in Werckmeister III.

We don't need to do many more early works on our concerts. They were chosen
in experimentation to discover their best tuning. Eventually, further
analysis and future evidence will likely be produced. Defiantly non ET tunings
were popularly utilized alongside ET (Wagner, Schubert, Schoenberg, Hindemith).
Enough with the nonsense of either "we'll never know" or "everyone for
themselves." Headway has been made.

I really wish I could have invited you all as guests to hear these concerts
for its musical truths, perhaps ineffable at that. Oh, there were some
contemporary pieces as well. ho-hum. ;)

all very best,

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music

"The original 'MicroFest'"

**************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family
favorites at AOL Food.
(http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)

Keep up the good work Johnny!
Alas i am even further away, but am thankful for your recordings.
As far as listening, not much will keep me away from what ever young and old are doing in my neck of the woods.
on top of this add i still had to stop around 1,500 Cds

/^_,',',',_ //^ /Kraig Grady_ ^_,',',',_
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere: North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_ ^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

Afmmjr@... wrote:
>
> We had some pretty special concerts this year. Paul Erlich was a > great soldier in my Odysseus, in Boston.
> > But somehow I feel disappointment that it is not possible for those on > this list to attend. Even the material on the AFMM website, and the > PITCH cds, make little impression. At least, this is the impression > sense from responses.
> > This List is about many things, often controversial. But ultimately > it centers on music. Neil and Paul have made comments in this > direction, as has Kraig. For the record, the only _real_ reason for > any of the things said on this List is that it makes a dent in music > (and hopefully a positive dent).
> > I believe only _listening_ to music can bring out musical truths. But > if a tree falls in the forest (as in a concert) and no one hears it > (at least proportionally), it doesn't make much of a sound. For this > reason we spent more money on recording and videography than ever > before. The material is intended to resonate still further.
> > After the recent concerts, I feel on rather secure ground stating that > Brahms's keyboard works are meant for Vallotti tuning. So is > Tartini's music with keyboard (at least's as demonstrated by "Devil's > Trill"). Mozart is unbelievably secure in Werckmeister III (quite > foreign a description than one would gather by only reading Brad's > strident reactions. We don't hear his imperfections.). Haydn is > seamless in Werckmeister III.
> > We don't need to do many more early works on our concerts. They were > chosen in experimentation to discover their best tuning. Eventually, > further analysis and future evidence will likely be > produced. Defiantly non ET tunings were popularly utilized alongside > ET (Wagner, Schubert, Schoenberg, Hindemith). Enough with the > nonsense of either "we'll never know" or "everyone for themselves." > Headway has been made.
> > I really wish I could have invited you all as guests to hear these > concerts for its musical truths, perhaps ineffable at that. Oh, there > were some contemporary pieces as well. ho-hum. ;)
> > all very best,
> > Johnny Reinhard
> Director
> American Festival of Microtonal Music
> > > "The original 'MicroFest'"
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family > favorites at AOL Food > <http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001>.
>

Johnny wrote:
> Mozart is unbelievably secure in Werckmeister III (quite foreign
> a description than one would gather by only reading Brad's
> strident reactions. We don't hear his imperfections.).
> Haydn is seamless in Werckmeister III.

Sir, whatever you choose to set up and prefer on a modern Steinway is your business, not Mozart's or Haydn's. They didn't have anything resembling your modern piano. And, you'd need to produce some evidence that they ever heard of or used Werckmeister (a nearly 100-year-old temperament at the time, a speculative organ-conversion temperament found in a book!) on *any* of their struck-string or plucked-string instruments.

And I say this having just performed, last Sunday morning, a movement of Haydn's sonata 18 in E-flat major, the F# minor (but wildly modulatory) slow movement of Schubert 959, and Strauss's "Emperor" Waltz (the piano arrangement in the Dover edition) for our church service. That was all on a Yamaha piano, tuned by me in the Bach/Lehman, which as you know is based on a series of 1/6 comma naturals. It worked great (IMO) through all those keys and shifting moods just because the temperament is so versatile in that way. But, I wouldn't make any claims that Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, or anyone else connected with Vienna ever necessarily used it. Certainly not on a Yamaha. All I know, inferentially, is that those composers had some system(s) that were circulating enough that they and their customers could play this music, and presumably enjoy it. [And we also have the clue that Mozart and his father taught and used 1/6 comma systems as a basis of their musicianship, on the proper inflection of semitones; I refer you to Dr Duffin's fine book.] I keep our church's piano in this all the time, and it's used by all kinds of other players there too, for any repertoire. I go in and practice Chopin, Grieg, and Brahms on it for my own enjoyment, as my keyboards at home are all non-pianos.

I'll have to offer one more "strident reaction" about W-III, to stay in character. I've played through at least a hundred pages of Mozart and Haydn sonata movements, in W-III, on my harpsichord...and IMO it sounds like *%#*&%#. It can't handle even the common chords found in E minor music, or any higher number of sharps in minor, or E-flat major music, or more flats, or C or F minors. Those Pythagorean triads on B, F#, Db, and Ab are simply too strident *on harpsichord*, IMO. The apparent observation that you (Johnny) like them on modern piano in that music is, once again, your business. I'm not even sure I know what the phrases "Haydn is seamless in Werckmeister III" or "unbelievably secure" mean to you.

Anyway, party on. The important thing is to play the music, isn't it? Haydn's piano sonatas, and Mozart's, and CPE Bach's, are great stuff to read straight through on harpsichord and clavichord...which is what I do for fun. I have given W-III a fair play in this, and I personally don't see any way those composers would have tolerated something that lumpy and ugly, at least on harpsichord. Nor do I give my son any haircut with four straight snips of a scissors, which is analogous to W-III's behavior, because it would be a tastelessly bad and amateurish haircut. (And this haircut thing isn't even my own illustration; it's from Dominique Devie's book about historical temperaments.) Your mileage may vary.

I even have some examples of myself playing in W-III on harpsichord here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob_p8vBNZW8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziJE_tXS9Ac
(Well, part of the point there is to demonstrate directly that W-III doesn't work very felicitously for continuo parts in Bach vocal music....)

Frankly, it's difficult anymore for me to play W-III's F# major and C# major triads in their functions within ordinary music, without cringing. Or, the rattly A-flat major triad. I understand that some people do enjoy and prefer that temperament anyway, for the contrasts it brings into the music (or for whatever reason), but I don't see how a Mozart or either of the big famous Haydns would have deliberately chosen such a thing, given other options. If they were inclined to stick any published organ temperament onto a stringed instrument (and why should they?), why should they pick W-III over, say, Sorge's 1758 temperament or any of the best of Neidhardt's?

Cheerio,
Brad Lehman

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:
>
> Johnny wrote:
> > Mozart is unbelievably secure in Werckmeister III (quite foreign
> > a description than one would gather by only reading Brad's
> > strident reactions. We don't hear his imperfections.).
> > Haydn is seamless in Werckmeister III.
>
> Sir, whatever you choose to set up and prefer on a modern Steinway is

Oh please Brad come off it.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:

played
> on a Yamaha piano, tuned by me in the
-so called-
>Bach/Lehman
allegations,
> which as you know is based on
Lehman's private hypothesis of
> a series of 1/6 comma naturals.

> It worked great (IMO) through
> all those keys and shifting moods just because the temperament is so
> versatile in that way....
-enuf selfpraising-
but at least we can register now the progress,
that's private opinion.

>....claims that Mozart,
> Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, or anyone else connected with Vienna ever
> necessarily used it.
That can be excluded almost surely.

> Certainly not on a Yamaha.
Well, at least here i do agree with Brad in his statement,
that all that composers never played on japanese Yamaha-pianos.
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/piano/about/about.html
"...founded in 1887"
hence trivial impossible.

> .... those composers had some system(s) that were
> circulating enough that they and their customers could play this
> music,
> and presumably enjoy it. [And we also have the clue that Mozart and
his
> father taught and used 1/6 comma systems as a basis of their
> musicianship, on the proper inflection of semitones;

http://www.music.indiana.edu/department/emi/handbook/Beyond%20temperament%20by%20Bruce%20Haynes.pdf
"1785-7

John Hind Chesnut (pp.263-71) has
pointed out that from a close look to Thomas Attwood's notes on
his studies W.A.Mozart in 1785-7, it is clear that M's normal concept
of instrument tuning also apparently distinguished
the small and large half steps of a mean-tone temper-
ament similar to 1/6th-comma.... Major and minor semi-
tones were discussed as late as 1813."

But i found none historically documents,
that would support Brad's outlandish claims, that:
Mozart would had ever tuned Brad's alleged
broade ~704Cents 5th inbetween Bb and F,
never to mention that Mozart would had labeld the enharmonic
equivalent of that 5th interval: A#-F
as "dimished-6th", as Brad imputes that to J.S.Bach
in his wild 'esotheric Rosetta-stone'd speculations.
Experts in Baroque-tunings disagree with Brad's assumptions:

http://ibo.ortgies.googlepages.com/errataandcorrigendatolindleyortgies:%22bac

> I keep our church's piano in this all the time,
> and it's used by all kinds of other players there too, for any
> repertoire. I go in and practice Chopin, Grieg, and Brahms on it
> for my own enjoyment,...

Nothing against playing all that 19.th-century composers in
a private modern 21.th-century tuning,
which was arbitrarily desinged in order to
meet the personal preferred taste of it's coeval inventor.
Never mind!

Hence, please abandon to write and tell us anymore
nonsense poems about Bach's foisted 'original-tuning',
that nobody believes in that group here, except the
primary originator.

Yours Sincerely
A.S.

> > Sir, whatever you choose to set up and prefer on a modern
> Steinway is
> > Oh please Brad come off it.

All right. Since my seasoned opinion (playing in it, on harpsichords, across more than 10 years) about the infelicity/dead-ends of W-III obviously isn't wanted here, with that "come off it":

Let's just stick to the questions of fact and 18th century reasonability that I posed.

1. Let's see some hard evidence that Mozart or Haydn ever heard of or used Werckmeister III (a nearly 100-year-old temperament at the time, a speculative organ-conversion temperament found in a book!) on *any* of their struck-string or plucked-string instruments.

2. If the Mozarts, Haydns, et al were inclined to stick *any* published organ temperament onto a stringed instrument (and why should they?), why should they pick W-III over, say, Sorge's 1758 temperament or any of the best of Neidhardt's?

Brad Lehman

Heavens... What sort of service is it that incorporates these
throughly secular, not to say heathen, works? It must be a lot of fun,
but what part do they play in the religious message?

Anyway, that is beside the point. What is more to it is that I can't
see any difference between Johnny's and Brad's methods of historical
investigation. (If you can call it that at all.) They both have a heap
of plausible circumstantial argumentation that you may or not believe.
They both trust their own ears above any historical documentation, as
far as present-day performance is concerned. Which is just as well for
them, because the historical record is extremely incomplete and
inconclusive.

They both think that what they choose to perform with, and sounds good
to them, now, is thereby validated or 'proved' or 'tested' as an
actual historical tuning, that what they hear now has some sort of
backwards-in-time influence on what Bach or Mozart or Haydn did 250 or
300 years ago. That's the utter insanity of it.

They both seem to think that it's not at all important whether you
make reasonable or unreasonable claims about what famous composers
actually did in history - as long as you are happy playing music now
in the present. That present personal enjoyment is some kind of
substitute for factually-supported history.

Well, this would be fine, except that they do insist on promoting
their current preferences by representing them as some kind of unique
and objective historical record. Face it, no-one would care in the
least about Werckmeister or Kirnberger or 'Bach-Lehman', *unless* a
few people had invested hundreds or thousands of hours and pages in
argumentation trying to prove to the world systematically that Bach
used this or that tuning.

Such argumentation leading to one single conclusion is necessarily
invalid, because in each case the arguer has made a *personal choice*
which tuning to promote. There were always MANY possible 'Bach
tunings' (given whatever bits and pieces of evidence one tends to take
seriously) - perhaps almost an infinite variety of them. In order to
promote one and only one out of these many possibilities, you have to
make a personal choice of which one most tickles your fancy.

The problem is that no-one in the 21st century can make a personal
choice that exerts an influence on Bach or Mozart or Haydn. If you
were able to travel in time, and gave those gentlemen the same choice,
they almost certainly would choose something different.

Anyone who makes such a choice among many alternatives - based partly
or wholly on his personal taste - then spends several years telling
anyone who will listen 'this was Bach's tuning' - not to mention
inventing arguments that 'prove' how this one tuning is the only one
that is historically supported - must be approaching insanity.

Would it be too hard to acknowledge some vaguely realistic degree of
uncertainty and personal subjectivity in people's choice of
what-tuning-they-play-Bach-with?

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:
>
> And I say this having just performed, last Sunday morning, a
movement of
> Haydn's sonata 18 in E-flat major, the F# minor (but wildly modulatory)
> slow movement of Schubert 959, and Strauss's "Emperor" Waltz (the piano
> arrangement in the Dover edition) for our church service. That was all
> on a Yamaha piano, tuned by me in the Bach/Lehman, which as you know is
> based on a series of 1/6 comma naturals. It worked great (IMO) through
> all those keys and shifting moods just because the temperament is so
> versatile in that way. But, I wouldn't make any claims that Mozart,
> Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, or anyone else connected with Vienna ever
> necessarily used it. Certainly not on a Yamaha. All I know,
> inferentially, is that those composers had some system(s) that were
> circulating enough that they and their customers could play this music,
> and presumably enjoy it. (...)>

I tend to agree with you Tom.

I enjoy "stealing" the great classical ideas (harmony/melody/timing/arrangements etc.) and anything else interesting and "outta" copyright.

To place undue reverence on "precise tunings", which were poorly documented and of doubtful providence, seems to me to be a bit of a fools' quest which requires gallons of gullibility.

It's fun to play the classical repertoire in "alternative" tunings, and listen to them with new ears, yet my interest is really in the present and future, which is why I pay more attention to the new and experimental tuning musings on this list.

On 16 May 2008, at 23:52, Tom Dent wrote:

>
> Heavens... What sort of service is it that incorporates these
> throughly secular, not to say heathen, works? It must be a lot of fun,
> but what part do they play in the religious message?
>
> Anyway, that is beside the point. What is more to it is that I can't
> see any difference between Johnny's and Brad's methods of historical
> investigation. (If you can call it that at all.) They both have a heap
> of plausible circumstantial argumentation that you may or not believe.
> They both trust their own ears above any historical documentation, as
> far as present-day performance is concerned. Which is just as well for
> them, because the historical record is extremely incomplete and
> inconclusive.
>
> They both think that what they choose to perform with, and sounds good
> to them, now, is thereby validated or 'proved' or 'tested' as an
> actual historical tuning, that what they hear now has some sort of
> backwards-in-time influence on what Bach or Mozart or Haydn did 250 or
> 300 years ago. That's the utter insanity of it.
>
> They both seem to think that it's not at all important whether you
> make reasonable or unreasonable claims about what famous composers
> actually did in history - as long as you are happy playing music now
> in the present. That present personal enjoyment is some kind of
> substitute for factually-supported history.
>
> Well, this would be fine, except that they do insist on promoting
> their current preferences by representing them as some kind of unique
> and objective historical record. Face it, no-one would care in the
> least about Werckmeister or Kirnberger or 'Bach-Lehman', *unless* a
> few people had invested hundreds or thousands of hours and pages in
> argumentation trying to prove to the world systematically that Bach
> used this or that tuning.
>
> Such argumentation leading to one single conclusion is necessarily
> invalid, because in each case the arguer has made a *personal choice*
> which tuning to promote. There were always MANY possible 'Bach
> tunings' (given whatever bits and pieces of evidence one tends to take
> seriously) - perhaps almost an infinite variety of them. In order to
> promote one and only one out of these many possibilities, you have to
> make a personal choice of which one most tickles your fancy.
>
> The problem is that no-one in the 21st century can make a personal
> choice that exerts an influence on Bach or Mozart or Haydn. If you
> were able to travel in time, and gave those gentlemen the same choice,
> they almost certainly would choose something different.
>
> Anyone who makes such a choice among many alternatives - based partly
> or wholly on his personal taste - then spends several years telling
> anyone who will listen 'this was Bach's tuning' - not to mention
> inventing arguments that 'prove' how this one tuning is the only one
> that is historically supported - must be approaching insanity.
>
> Would it be too hard to acknowledge some vaguely realistic degree of
> uncertainty and personal subjectivity in people's choice of
> what-tuning-they-play-Bach-with?
>
> ~~~T~~~
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:
> >
> > And I say this having just performed, last Sunday morning, a
> movement of
> > Haydn's sonata 18 in E-flat major, the F# minor (but wildly > modulatory)
> > slow movement of Schubert 959, and Strauss's "Emperor" Waltz (the > piano
> > arrangement in the Dover edition) for our church service. That was > all
> > on a Yamaha piano, tuned by me in the Bach/Lehman, which as you > know is
> > based on a series of 1/6 comma naturals. It worked great (IMO) > through
> > all those keys and shifting moods just because the temperament is so
> > versatile in that way. But, I wouldn't make any claims that Mozart,
> > Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, or anyone else connected with Vienna ever
> > necessarily used it. Certainly not on a Yamaha. All I know,
> > inferentially, is that those composers had some system(s) that were
> > circulating enough that they and their customers could play this > music,
> > and presumably enjoy it. (...)>
>
>
>
Charles Lucy
lucy@...

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

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

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
http://www.lullabies.co.uk

I tend to agree with you Tom.

I enjoy "stealing" the great classical ideas (harmony/melody/timing/arrangements etc.) and anything else interesting and "outta" copyright.

To place undue reverence on "precise tunings", which were poorly documented and of doubtful providence, seems to me to be a bit of a fools' quest which requires gallons of gullibility.

It's fun to play the classical repertoire in "alternative" tunings, and listen to them with new ears, yet my interest is really in the present and future, which is why I pay more attention to the new and experimental tuning musings on this list.

On 16 May 2008, at 23:52, Tom Dent wrote:

>
> Heavens... What sort of service is it that incorporates these
> throughly secular, not to say heathen, works? It must be a lot of fun,
> but what part do they play in the religious message?
>
> Anyway, that is beside the point. What is more to it is that I can't
> see any difference between Johnny's and Brad's methods of historical
> investigation. (If you can call it that at all.) They both have a heap
> of plausible circumstantial argumentation that you may or not believe.
> They both trust their own ears above any historical documentation, as
> far as present-day performance is concerned. Which is just as well for
> them, because the historical record is extremely incomplete and
> inconclusive.
>
> They both think that what they choose to perform with, and sounds good
> to them, now, is thereby validated or 'proved' or 'tested' as an
> actual historical tuning, that what they hear now has some sort of
> backwards-in-time influence on what Bach or Mozart or Haydn did 250 or
> 300 years ago. That's the utter insanity of it.
>
> They both seem to think that it's not at all important whether you
> make reasonable or unreasonable claims about what famous composers
> actually did in history - as long as you are happy playing music now
> in the present. That present personal enjoyment is some kind of
> substitute for factually-supported history.
>
> Well, this would be fine, except that they do insist on promoting
> their current preferences by representing them as some kind of unique
> and objective historical record. Face it, no-one would care in the
> least about Werckmeister or Kirnberger or 'Bach-Lehman', *unless* a
> few people had invested hundreds or thousands of hours and pages in
> argumentation trying to prove to the world systematically that Bach
> used this or that tuning.
>
> Such argumentation leading to one single conclusion is necessarily
> invalid, because in each case the arguer has made a *personal choice*
> which tuning to promote. There were always MANY possible 'Bach
> tunings' (given whatever bits and pieces of evidence one tends to take
> seriously) - perhaps almost an infinite variety of them. In order to
> promote one and only one out of these many possibilities, you have to
> make a personal choice of which one most tickles your fancy.
>
> The problem is that no-one in the 21st century can make a personal
> choice that exerts an influence on Bach or Mozart or Haydn. If you
> were able to travel in time, and gave those gentlemen the same choice,
> they almost certainly would choose something different.
>
> Anyone who makes such a choice among many alternatives - based partly
> or wholly on his personal taste - then spends several years telling
> anyone who will listen 'this was Bach's tuning' - not to mention
> inventing arguments that 'prove' how this one tuning is the only one
> that is historically supported - must be approaching insanity.
>
> Would it be too hard to acknowledge some vaguely realistic degree of
> uncertainty and personal subjectivity in people's choice of
> what-tuning-they-play-Bach-with?
>
> ~~~T~~~
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:
> >
> > And I say this having just performed, last Sunday morning, a
> movement of
> > Haydn's sonata 18 in E-flat major, the F# minor (but wildly > modulatory)
> > slow movement of Schubert 959, and Strauss's "Emperor" Waltz (the > piano
> > arrangement in the Dover edition) for our church service. That was > all
> > on a Yamaha piano, tuned by me in the Bach/Lehman, which as you > know is
> > based on a series of 1/6 comma naturals. It worked great (IMO) > through
> > all those keys and shifting moods just because the temperament is so
> > versatile in that way. But, I wouldn't make any claims that Mozart,
> > Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, or anyone else connected with Vienna ever
> > necessarily used it. Certainly not on a Yamaha. All I know,
> > inferentially, is that those composers had some system(s) that were
> > circulating enough that they and their customers could play this > music,
> > and presumably enjoy it. (...)>
>
>
>
Charles Lucy
lucy@...

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

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

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
http://www.lullabies.co.uk

> Anyone who makes such a choice among many alternatives - based partly
> or wholly on his personal taste - then spends several years telling
> anyone who will listen 'this was Bach's tuning' - not to mention
> inventing arguments that 'prove' how this one tuning is the only one
> that is historically supported - must be approaching insanity.

A psychological evaluation by a person who has never met me. I'm sorry, but your diagnosis is not very helpful.

> To place undue reverence on "precise tunings", which were poorly
> documented and of doubtful providence, seems to me to be a bit of a
> fools' quest which requires gallons of gullibility.

As my web site and papers explain, my analysis arises foremost from Bach's extant MUSIC: most notably, the use of 13, 14, 15, etc differently spelled notes within the same composition, and not only 12. Some of the most remarkable examples are in the book of inventions/sinfonias, and of course in WTC (1). That enharmonic usage, itself, constrains any inferences about Bach's tuning method(s) to fall within a narrow range of possibilities. THEN: the evidence of the title-page drawing on the WTC, upon that ground, narrows it further.

Anybody who thinks my methods are otherwise has it backwards, themselves, as a misunderstanding of my work.

> Claiming you have found a Bach
> code in ornamental squiggles is one of the great scams in music.
> Truly, your responses were right on cue. The greater shame is with
> Early Music and its publisher, Oxford Music Press.

But, I haven't claimed "a Bach code"! And my "responses were right on cue" in what way -- are you referring to "Da Vinci Code" fads?

If you've actually read my web site, closely, you'd already know that all of my research grows from a doctoral project of mine 1993-4, where I investigated both the music and the historical possibilities of modified-meantone tempering for this repertoire. That's my background on this.

If some people choose to mistake all this for a "scam", thereby severely misunderstanding my work, well, that's their loss; I am quite earnest about this work, and my main body of evidence is all that Bach music (some instrumental, some vocal) that uses extended enharmonic notes.

I don't take Bach's drawing as any kind of "code". (What a convenient straw-man assignment that is, to rubbish the work!) I take the drawing as a practical diagram for adjustment of harpsichord tuning pins, a hands-on process, nudging the notes slightly off the sound of pure 5ths by single or double amounts.

> [Johnny] You are a generalist. For me it is the long trail following a
> masters thesis. It is painful to hear Mozart in ET when it is so
> expressive, with
> deeper dimensions of meaning provided by ANY unequal temperament.
> Brad has
> capitalized on this phenomenon. Only his is a modern device. I have
> invented nothing. Neil, please keep your students safe.

Johnny, agreed, you haven't invented Werckmeister III. However, you've followed a bunch of 20th century musicians who took that organ-conversion temperament and applied it far out of context, putting it onto stringed instruments. THAT process is a modern phenomenon. For your hypothesis to hold up, we need some evidence that any 18th century musicians not only put W-III onto stringed keyboards, but that they (in some way) *preferred* it over other practical options available to them.

> Tom: They both trust their own ears above any historical
> documentation, as
> far as present-day performance is concerned. Which is just as well for
> them, because the historical record is extremely incomplete and
> inconclusive.
> > Johnny: If you see no difference between us, that certainly says a
> lot to
> me. While musicologists mistrust their ears so completely, and distrust
> musicians accordingly, there is indeed room for concert work. Sorry
> you don't
> feel that way.

Here I agree with both Tom and Johnny, in part. The historical record *is* extremely incomplete and inconclusive; but I don't (and I won't speak for Johnny!) trust my own ears ABOVE hard evidence. The hard evidence is Bach's music, plus every available clue to tuning practices around him and his students. And I continue to work on those. And being a musician myself, I *do* trust the ears of musical experts, including my own, on the plausibility of any offered solutions. That's why (sorry, Johnny!) I personally can't accept the idea of W-III being as widespread as Johnny asserts: it just doesn't sound plausible to me in the way it mis-handles all those enharmonic events. The way to test these things is indeed to try out as much of the music as possible...but it also has to be on instruments like those the composers knew, not only modern pianos and such.

> Tom: They both think that what they choose to perform with, and
> sounds good
> to them, now, is thereby validated or 'proved' or 'tested' as an
> actual historical tuning, that what they hear now has some sort of
> backwards-in-time influence on what Bach or Mozart or Haydn did 250 or
> 300 years ago. That's the utter insanity of it.
> > Johnny: Insanity is to put words in my mouth. Brad's views are
> public. I concur that Tom is out of line here. It's "insanity" (Tom's own assessment!) to put words into either Johnny's or my mouths on this, on any methods of validation.

> Tom: They both seem to think that it's not at all important whether you
> make reasonable or unreasonable claims about what famous composers
> actually did in history - as long as you are happy playing music now
> in the present.

Tom, since you're willing to put stock in what I "seem to think" (which "seeming" is way off base), what's happened to your own scientific methodology? You're not representing what I actually *do* think about all these things. I, personally, am interested in promoting only *reasonable* claims. That is why I work hard on checking them closely, through many rounds of sifting, before presenting them.

Enough for now. I have an appointment to take a child out to breakfast on this lovely-looking day.

Brad Lehman

quite well put.
I would like to add that there is the possibility that Bach liked many different tunings, like so many on this list.
Also since as this list has argued that a great composer can write great music in a bad tuning, maybe the tuning is not so relevant.

/^_,',',',_ //^ /Kraig Grady_ ^_,',',',_
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere: North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_ ^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

Tom Dent wrote:
>
>
> Heavens... What sort of service is it that incorporates these
> throughly secular, not to say heathen, works? It must be a lot of fun,
> but what part do they play in the religious message?
>
> Anyway, that is beside the point. What is more to it is that I can't
> see any difference between Johnny's and Brad's methods of historical
> investigation. (If you can call it that at all.) They both have a heap
> of plausible circumstantial argumentation that you may or not believe.
> They both trust their own ears above any historical documentation, as
> far as present-day performance is concerned. Which is just as well for
> them, because the historical record is extremely incomplete and
> inconclusive.
>
> They both think that what they choose to perform with, and sounds good
> to them, now, is thereby validated or 'proved' or 'tested' as an
> actual historical tuning, that what they hear now has some sort of
> backwards-in-time influence on what Bach or Mozart or Haydn did 250 or
> 300 years ago. That's the utter insanity of it.
>
> They both seem to think that it's not at all important whether you
> make reasonable or unreasonable claims about what famous composers
> actually did in history - as long as you are happy playing music now
> in the present. That present personal enjoyment is some kind of
> substitute for factually-supported history.
>
> Well, this would be fine, except that they do insist on promoting
> their current preferences by representing them as some kind of unique
> and objective historical record. Face it, no-one would care in the
> least about Werckmeister or Kirnberger or 'Bach-Lehman', *unless* a
> few people had invested hundreds or thousands of hours and pages in
> argumentation trying to prove to the world systematically that Bach
> used this or that tuning.
>
> Such argumentation leading to one single conclusion is necessarily
> invalid, because in each case the arguer has made a *personal choice*
> which tuning to promote. There were always MANY possible 'Bach
> tunings' (given whatever bits and pieces of evidence one tends to take
> seriously) - perhaps almost an infinite variety of them. In order to
> promote one and only one out of these many possibilities, you have to
> make a personal choice of which one most tickles your fancy.
>
> The problem is that no-one in the 21st century can make a personal
> choice that exerts an influence on Bach or Mozart or Haydn. If you
> were able to travel in time, and gave those gentlemen the same choice,
> they almost certainly would choose something different.
>
> Anyone who makes such a choice among many alternatives - based partly
> or wholly on his personal taste - then spends several years telling
> anyone who will listen 'this was Bach's tuning' - not to mention
> inventing arguments that 'prove' how this one tuning is the only one
> that is historically supported - must be approaching insanity.
>
> Would it be too hard to acknowledge some vaguely realistic degree of
> uncertainty and personal subjectivity in people's choice of
> what-tuning-they-play-Bach-with?
>
> ~~~T~~~
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com <mailto:tuning%40yahoogroups.com>, Brad > Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:
> >
> > And I say this having just performed, last Sunday morning, a
> movement of
> > Haydn's sonata 18 in E-flat major, the F# minor (but wildly modulatory)
> > slow movement of Schubert 959, and Strauss's "Emperor" Waltz (the piano
> > arrangement in the Dover edition) for our church service. That was all
> > on a Yamaha piano, tuned by me in the Bach/Lehman, which as you know is
> > based on a series of 1/6 comma naturals. It worked great (IMO) through
> > all those keys and shifting moods just because the temperament is so
> > versatile in that way. But, I wouldn't make any claims that Mozart,
> > Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, or anyone else connected with Vienna ever
> > necessarily used it. Certainly not on a Yamaha. All I know,
> > inferentially, is that those composers had some system(s) that were
> > circulating enough that they and their customers could play this music,
> > and presumably enjoy it. (...)>
>
>