Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Mahler's tuning (was: Bach, Mozart, chromatic runs)

> [Daniel Wolf, TD 516.4]
> For a moment, I think I really understood why the fugal
> tradition did not survive Bach except as a passing topos,
> but at the same time how this was not a tragedy in that a
> alternative compositional function (the Sonata) was developed
> where one could make convincing tonal closure although the
> tone system itself was not closed.

Wow, Daniel, thanks for a *really* thought-provoking post !!!

This passage only stimulated further my already-strong
interest in exploring microtonal possibilities in Mahler's
music, because not only did he write almost entirely [*]
for orchestra and voices - both of which are non-fixed tuning
- but he also gradually developed a very strong interest
in Bach's work and incorporated fugal and other contrapuntal
techniques he learned from his study of Bach into his
symphonies, amalgamating those contrapuntal processes
with his already quite original conception of classical
sonata-form (especially from the 5th Symphony onward).

Of course, also thrown into this mix must be the recognition
that by Mahler's time 12-tET had pretty much become the
theoretical tuning standard, altho I would argue that Mahler
was really perhaps the last 'significant' composer in the
Austrian tradition to whom non-12-tET tuning would have been
relevant.

(Of course we all know the effect his younger buddy Schoenberg
had on the general acceptance of 12-tET. Also, it was not long
after Mahler's death that Moellendorf, Busoni, Haba, etc., were
interested in blatantly microtonal tunings.)

Thanks !!

------
[*] Except for his songs with piano accompaniment, most of
which were eventually arranged for (or perhaps even originally
conceived with) orchestral accompaniment instead of piano,
or incorporated into, or made the basis of, later orchestral
works.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

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🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf@snafu.de>

Joe Monzo:

Mahler's music does indeed live through its contradictions. It is at once
one possible culmination of the Viennese tonal tradition and informed by a
polyphonic sensibility that is more Bach than Bruckner. Likewise in his
tuning practice: while the functional language can be parsed classically
(i.e. meantone), the chords themselves often suggest richer harmonic
resources (extended just), the melodic lines frequently demand an
over-expressive exaggerated intonation (i.e. pythagorean leading tones),
while the polyphonic overlay calls for the closure found in a temperament.

The task for the performer is to find an intonation that services all of
these impulses equally well. While I find (and have written about it here
before) it to be important that the most significant works in the
Austrian/German tradition of the late nineteenth century are for
instrumental ensembles without an intonationally-constraining keyboard
instrument, I'm afraid that the globally-active intonation will inevitably
be 12tet, but very likely a 12tet that is improved upon locally by the best
performers. (The Vienna Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony seem to be
able to do this on automatic pilot, while Solti was and Boulez is able to
drawn this out of even mediocre ensembles.)

It is precisely in this kind of repertoire that I hear as interesting for
adaptive tuning. Earlier repertoire with continuo sounds to me too closely
bound to either meantone or proto-equal tunings, but the absence of
continuo, the slow advent of ET, and the continuously expanding harmonic
language make the long transition of music over the course of the 19th
century to be one with considerably more intonational conplexity than is
generally recognized.

Daniel Wolf
Frankfurt am Main

🔗Joe Monzo <monz@juno.com>

> [Daniel Wolf, TD 517.3]
> Mahler's music does indeed live through its contradictions.

A thousand Amens to that!

> It is precisely in this kind of repertoire ['works in
> the Austrian/German tradition of the late nineteenth
> century ... for instrumental ensembles without an
> intonationally-constraining keyboard instrument'] that
> I hear as interesting for adaptive tuning. Earlier
> repertoire with continuo sounds to me too closely bound
> to either meantone or proto-equal tunings, but the absence
> of continuo, the slow advent of ET, and the continuously
> expanding harmonic language make the long transition of
> music over the course of the 19th century to be one with
> considerably more intonational conplexity than is
> generally recognized.

Yes - I agree 100%! This repertoire has always been one
of my favorites, and it's becoming even more interesting
with the idea of applying complex tunings to it.

I think you excellently pointed out several important
facets concerning Mahler's work in particular.

-monz