Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: Illuminations, & Werckmeister and Mozart

> [Joseph Pehrson, TD 520.1]
> Thanks for Daniel Wolf for providing a short historical
> sketch of the changes in temperament in Germany and Austria.
> As they used to say a few years back, "That's news to me!"
> The biggest revelation for me was the fact that the various
> tunings spread out UNEVENLY through different geographical
> regions. This makes a lot of sense, in fact, it should be
> almost self-evident, but I must confess I'd never even thought
> about it before...

Indeed, I never had either. Thanks from me too, Daniel.

But I'm familiar with this idea in connection with first the
loss, and then the rediscovery, of ancient Greek tunings in
Western Europe.

The Germanic invasions of c 400-500 AD pretty much wiped out
all the ancient knowledge that the Romans had preserved,
the major exception (as regards music-theory) being Boethius,
who was a subject of Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king of Italy.
But knowledge of Boethius's book also disappeared for a while
while nearly everyone in Europe became illiterate.

Of course, the conquering Germanic tribes had ancient knowledge
in their own traditions, which from this point on became a
major factor in the evolution of ideas all over Europe, possibly
extending even into northern Africa (the Vandal kingdom).

Charlemagne (c 750-800), who had good diplomatic ties with the
Byzantine (i.e., Greek) Empire, Persia, and the Baghdad Caliphate,
and who knew how important education was, began to bring some
of the Greek learning back into Europe - some of it filtered
thru the Arab scholars. Our modern Euro-centric music-theory
begins with the Franks and continues in an unbroken line
to today.

There was another 'Dark Age' after Charlemagne's death, as
the Frankish empire was broken up again into petty kingdoms
headed by various of his descendants fighting against one
another for power, but the candle was not quite as fully
extinguished as it had been a few centuries before.
Music-theory, in particular, continued to be a discipline
that was subject to much investigation; Hucbald and
Guido d'Arezzo especially come to mind.

Then during the Crusades, soldiers coming back to Europe
brought with them many treasures of the 'Holy Land', including
ancient Greek and Arabic music-theory treatises. This was
also the time of the establishment of the Sorbonne in Paris,
and the development of the musical Ars Nova.

The sack of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 resulted in
the exodus of Greek scholars (mainly into Persia and Italy),
and Gutenburg's invention of the printing press happened
around the same time. These two events are mainly what really
got the Renaissance going into full swing. Thus the strong
interest of so many medieval European music-theorists in the
ancient Greek tunings.

It doesn't surprise me at all that during the Baroque,
Austrian musicians would adhere to meantone during a time
that northern German provinces would move beyond it and explore
well-temperaments. The religious difference alone would seem
to me to argue in favor of Catholic Austria maintaining older
traditions while Protestant Germany was more progressive.

To a large extent, ideas and practices concerning tuning
have been disseminated in patterns that can be revealed
by a study of historical political and cultural events.

> [Johnny Reinhard, TD 520.6]
> BTW, Leopold Mozart recommends Werckmeister for tuning in
> his classic book on violin playing.

Then, of course, there's always the fact that an inidividual
is capable of bucking the trend.

-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 and Johnny Reinhard:

I'd be rather cautious in tracing tuning systems in terms of ethnic
movements or political history. Without real concrete evidence, speculation
on these lines usually comes out sounding like _Kulturkreis_ theory, which
was basically discredited simultaneously with national socialist racial
theories. Even a borderline scholar like Marius Schneider realized that
racial theories failed to explain the transmission of tonal materials.

Also, a footnote:

> It doesn't surprise me at all that during the Baroque,
> Austrian musicians would adhere to meantone during a time
> that northern German provinces would move beyond it and explore
> well-temperaments. The religious difference alone would seem
> to me to argue in favor of Catholic Austria maintaining older
> traditions while Protestant Germany was more progressive.

This doesn't quite work, a glance at the details reveals that the situation
was very much more complex. The Austrian empire under Joseph II was more
progressive in many aspects, especially in the anti-clericalism, reform of
state institutions, etc. than any of the small states in Northern Germany.
(Many reforms did not, however, outlive him). In contrast, the brand of
Lutheranism practiced by Bach was, in some regards, not dissimilar to "high
church" Anglicanism. That Handel was able to function as a composer of
scared music in lutheran, roman catholic and anglican state churches
illustrates a certain fluidity in religious identity. That said, protestant
church music did not get played in catholic churches (and vice versa),
whatever the ideological environment, and sacred music by Bach would not
have been played by Mozart in catholic services.

Daniel Wolf

🔗Joe Monzo <monz@juno.com>

> [Daniel Wolf, TD 521.6]
> I'd be rather cautious in tracing tuning systems in terms
> of ethnic movements or political history. Without real concrete
> evidence, speculation on these lines usually comes out
> sounding like _Kulturkreis_ theory, which was basically
> discredited simultaneously with national socialist racial
> theories.

_Caveat_ noted. But without the kind of documentation that
we can create for music nowadays, and which will *never* exist
for music written before the invention of the phonograph,
there's no 'real concrete evidence' *against* my speculations
either.

> ... protestant church music did not get played in catholic
> churches (and vice versa), whatever the ideological environment,
> and sacred music by Bach would not have been played by Mozart
> in catholic services.

This is exactly the kind of observation that points to the
kinds of cultural influences on tuning about which I wrote.

As always, your perceptive comments are most appreciated.

-monz