Thumb reasoning (??)

It won't take much, but I need a little more historical background
concerning the whole meantone-well tempered Tuning List controversy
surrounding Bach and Mozart. It seems from the list that the implication
is that Bach intended smooth chromatic runs in well-tempered Werkmeister
and Mozart, born 6 years after Bach died, used an UNEVEN meantone system
and all his chromatic runs were played unevenly in little "grupetti." Is
this for real?? Come on. Do we have a Margo Schulter of the Classical
Period lurking on this list -- or don't such types hang out on alternate
tuning sites... In any case, is it not true that Mozart's prank involved
the use of his nose as an additional digit (??) In this way, he could
certainly "thumb his nose" at the limitations of not using his thumb...

J. Pehrson

> From: Joseph Pehrson <josephpehrson@compuserve.com>
>
> It won't take much, but I need a little more historical background
> concerning the whole meantone-well tempered Tuning List controversy
> surrounding Bach and Mozart.

I'm a generalist, not a specialist like Margo Schulter, but my musicological
traveling papers are in good order.

If you can handle the German, the best place to start reading is in the
three volumes of "Zur musikalischen Temperatur" by Herbert Kelletat. As I
mentioned previously, I hope to summarize these books in some depth soon.

> is that Bach intended smooth chromatic runs in well-tempered Werkmeister
> and Mozart, born 6 years after Bach died, used an UNEVEN meantone system
> and all his chromatic runs were played unevenly in little "grupetti." Is
> this for real?? Come on.

Chronology without geographic distinctions often leads to some confusion.
The activities in protestant Saxony and Thuringia were largely unknown to
composers of the next generation, and composers like Mozart and Haydn, in
the catholic Austrian empire learned of Bach only little (howevermuch they
were imressed by it) and late. Bach's tuning practice was very likely NOT
transmitted to the Viennese.

Meantone continued in Northern Germany well after Sebastian Bach; the
composers in the generation following his own (as well as his contemporaries
Telemann, and H�ndel, the most influential composer of the era) generally
restricted themselves to the resources of meantone. Bach's extravagant
demands for modulation and key variety would not be matched until well into
the 19th century.

I'm increasingly convinced that the "well-tempered" era was actually a brief
cul-de-sac (where the practitioners thought of themselves as essentially
producing 12-tet) and that the 19th century use of 12-tet arose instead
from gradually spreading out the comma in meantone and that this came from
the Viennese tradition. (I am assuming that by mature Beethoven the comma
was already past the sixth-comma limit and that players heard the tuning as
approximately equal).

As for the gruppetti, listen to some good recording using either historical
instruments and performance practice or to any of the 20th century players
in the Viennese tradition (there are too many to note -- of all people, I
heard Friedrich Gulda on a memorial broadcast last night and there were the
gruppetti -- but violinist Rudolph Kolisch is my favorite).