Re: Tuning, religion, and style in early modern Europe

Hello, there, and I'd like to comment on the question of European
music history and especially its intonational side in connection with
matters of spirituality and religious movements. Generally I would
agree with Daniel Wolf that we should be careful about making
generalizations in this area.

At the same time, of course, I would agree with Joe Monzo that
developments such as the 12th-century Renaissance and the introduction
of Islamic culture and learning (including some Greek sources) to
Europe in that epic may interact with musical developments in some
very interesting ways.

In approaching both these points, I would like to suggest another
caution: it may be important not to underestimate the influence of
musical and stylistic logic both on shifting choices in tuning
systems, and on the metaphors (theological or otherwise) used to
express music practice and theory.

For example, the Continental European styles of the era around
1200-1420 can be explained and appreciated in purely musical terms:
they represent some very successful and pleasing approaches to
creating beautiful music based on fifths and fourths as richly stable
intervals. Many other cultures on various continents also create such
music following often very different styles and theoretical
frameworks. In England during this same era, however, some musical
styles preferred thirds as the most favored intervals -- as also
occurs in various other world polyphonies.

Having emphasized in many articles the ways in which Pythagorean or
3-limit just intonation fits medieval European polyphony based on
stable fifths and fourths, I should add that nevertheless the music
has its own style and logic which I can hear also in 12-tet, 1/4-comma
meantone, 17-tet, etc. In appreciating how these intonational shadings
can affect this music, we should not underestimate the importance of
categorical perception of intervals.

Thus Perotin or Machaut ending on a sonority including a third, or
Mozart ending on a sonority including a seventh, "sounds wrong" or out
of style -- whether the third is 5:4, 400 cents, 81:64, or 9:7; and
likewise whether the seventh is 7:4, 1000 cents, or 16:9, etc. While
one can certainly say that the tuning systems of these eras reflect
and reinforce style, I would consider it much more questionable to
conclude that these systems _dictate_ style. When styles change, the
systems can change also.

Returning to the question of religion and intonational systems in
early modern Europe, I would like consider some developments in both
Catholic and Protestant regions which may support Daniel Wolf's
caution about generalizations.

For example, it is in 1511, before Luther's Reformation becomes a
factor, that the German theorist Arnold Schlick proposes a kind of
"well-temperament" not for the entire keyboard, but for one note in
what Mark Lindley describes as a meantone tuning at around 1/5-comma:
Ab/G#.

Finding Ab too useful a note to miss, but recognizing that G# occurs
in lots of cadential passages, Schlick suggests the compromise on a
12-note keyboard of tuning a high but tolerable Ab which can also
serve as a marginal G# in quick passages. If we assume with Lindley
that Schlick's regular major thirds are a bit larger than pure, then
the diesis in this tuning might be around 30 cents -- so that Ab-C
might be tuned about 10 cents wide, and E-G# about 20 cents wide
(near-Pythagorean).

Later in the century, it is the Catholic Nicola Vicentino (1555) who
builds the archicembalo and arciorgano for "enharmonic" or fifthtone
music with a near-equal 31-note meantone division of the octave, as
well as for 5-limit just intonation of a variety which Paul Erlich has
aptly described as "adaptive."

Interestingly, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo of Milan remarked that
Vicentino would be welcome to compose a chromatic Mass as one approach
to "intelligible music" -- that is, music where the text could be
readily understood by listeners.

As it happens, another Catholic composer, Anthoine de Bertrand (1578),
used Vicentinan dieses in an enharmonic chanson: like his Protestant
counterpart Claude Goudimel, another great French musician of the era,
he was assassinated in the course of the terrible civil wars of
religion then ravishing France.

Despite the all too well known religious hatreds and persecutions of
the 16th and 17th centuries, musical ideas _did_ travel across
boundaries. Thus even while England was executing Catholics as
"traitors," and the Venetian Inquisition was drowning Protestants, the
Italian madrigal and canzonetta "invaded" England and led to the
English Madrigal School of late Elizabethan and Jacobean times.

Here my purpose is not to minimize the contributions of either
Protestant or Catholic musicians to intonational and other
developments, but only to respond to the possible assumption that
either religious tradition was incompatible with musical innovation.

When the Lutheran writer Johannes Lippius (1610, 1612) wrote his
musical synopsis centered on the _trias harmonica_ (triad) as a
keystone of theology and musical practice alike, he drew on Catholic
models in the areas of intonational theory and composition. Thus he
shares Zarlino's enthusiasm for Ptolemy's syntonic diatonic tuning as
applied to tertian or 5-limit music, and recommends as models of
practice Luca Marenzio and Orlando di Lasso.

During this same era, the Lutheran composer Heinrich Schutz studied in
Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli and adapted a song by Claudio Monteverdi
for one of his own pieces, also introducing elements of the new
"concerted" Italian styles into his German music. When Praetorius
championed 1/4-comma meantone -- known to some later theorists as the
"Praetorian" tuning -- he was likely sharing a preference widespread
in Italy also.

Earlier, as reported in his treatise of 1581, Vincenzo Galilei had
experimented with the usual temperament for a lute -- 12-tet or a
close approximation -- on a harpsichord. He found it "insupportable"
for such a timbre, although in principle he considered the tuning with
equal semitones as more symmetrical and "perfect," and wrote a piece
assuming the equivalency of accidentals such as G# and Ab to
demonstrate what he considered its unique advantages.

Moving to the topic of well-temperaments (i.e. 12-note circulating
temperaments, equal or otherwise), with the caution that this is
going beyond my historical range of familiarity, I might note that
Mark Lindley offers some evidence that Frescobaldi favored 12-tet in
the 1630's, and suggests that this composer's pupil Froberger wrote
works which may best be performed in this tuning. Here, again, an
intonational preference may have travelled from Italy to Germany -- if
Lindley's hypothesis about Frescobaldi and Froberger is valid. (One
note to a piece by Froberger, which does not mention his Protestant or
Catholic affiliation, mentions the influence of French lutenists --
who presumably used an approximation of 12-tet.)

Also, Lindley notes that by the later 17th century, somewhat before
Werckmeister's publications (starting in 1681) I take it, French
musicians had developed a kind of unequal temperament called
_ordinaire_, likely as a fortuitous but successful modification of
meantone. Misunderstanding the usual meantone instructions for
tempering fifths at the flat and sharp ends of the tuning chain,
tuners sometimes did this tempering in the "wrong" direction -- and
produced some fifths slightly _wider_ than just, thus by indirection
dodging any Wolves.

While musicians of the later 17th century in both Protestant and
Catholic regions of Europe were moving from the modal system to
major/minor key tonality, one could argue that it was actually Italy
in the vanguard, with Corelli (c. 1680) providing one popular starting
point for the "common practice period."

Of course, Werckmeister deserves a special place of pride in the
history of the well-temperaments, but we should not forget Vallotti,
whose approach to well-temperament has been considered as influential
for the era of Mozart.

We might also note that Rameau, who I've heard was favorably inclined
toward 12-tet, championed the major/minor system as a more
thoroughgoing standard, while Kirnberger in 1771 devoted a portion of
his treatise to the techniques and virtues of the older modal system.
Here my purpose is not to argue the merits of either approach, but
only to support Daniel Wolf's caution regarding generalizations about
trends in Catholic or Protestant regions of Europe.

Most respectfully,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

> [Margo Schulter, TD 523.19]
> ... it may be important not to underestimate the influence of
> musical and stylistic logic both on shifting choices in tuning
> systems, and on the metaphors (theological or otherwise) used to
> express music practice and theory.

Agreed.

> In England during this same era, however, some musical
> styles preferred thirds as the most favored intervals -- as
> also occurs in various other world polyphonies.

Those interested in this point may like to read an old post
where I responded to Margo, and in which I speculated wildly
that the 5-limit intonational paradigm may have entered
England via undocumented Scandinavian sources, and that the
Scandinavians may have gotten it from Native Americans c 1000 AD.
See TD 207
http://www.onelist.com/messages/tuning?archive=207
message 14, and Margo's responses in messages 21 and 22;
the thread continues in Margo absorbing reply in 209.19, and
my response to her in 210.15.

> In appreciating how these intonational shadings can affect
> this music, we should not underestimate the importance of
> categorical perception of intervals.

Agreed.

> While one can certainly say that the tuning systems of these
> eras reflect and reinforce style, I would consider it much more
> questionable to conclude that these systems _dictate_ style.
> When styles change, the systems can change also.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that it may work both ways.

> Returning to the question of religion and intonational systems
> in early modern Europe, I would like consider some developments
> in both Catholic and Protestant regions which may support Daniel
> Wolf's caution about generalizations.

And I think your examples make your (and Mr. Wolf's) point well.

But I think your examples underline the fact that the Greek
scholars fleeing Constantinople settled mainly in Italy. Don't
forget that 2 centuries before Schlick, Vicentino and Zarlino,
Marchetto was active in Italy, and whether he was describing an
extended Pythagorean tuning or some other system (*this* jury is
still out on that question), he was most definitely describing
microtonal subtleties in a system of more than 12 distinct notes
per 'octave'. See my Marchetto webpage:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/marchet/marchet.htm

> Despite the all too well known religious hatreds and
> persecutions of the 16th and 17th centuries, musical ideas
> _did_ travel across boundaries.

To Margo's examples, one might note conspicuously that of
Orlando di Lasso, who had quite a successful career in both
Italy and the Netherlands.

> Earlier, as reported in his treatise of 1581, Vincenzo Galilei
> had experimented with the usual temperament for a lute -- 12-tet
> or a close approximation -- on a harpsichord. He found it
> "insupportable" for such a timbre, although in principle he
> considered the tuning with equal semitones as more symmetrical
> and "perfect," and wrote a piece assuming the equivalency of
> accidentals such as G# and Ab to demonstrate what he considered
> its unique advantages.
>
> Moving to the topic of well-temperaments (i.e. 12-note
> circulating temperaments, equal or otherwise), with the caution
> that this is going beyond my historical range of familiarity,
> I might note that Mark Lindley offers some evidence that
> Frescobaldi favored 12-tet in the 1630's, and suggests that
> this composer's pupil Froberger wrote works which may best
> be performed in this tuning. Here, again, an intonational
> preference may have travelled from Italy to Germany -- if
> Lindley's hypothesis about Frescobaldi and Froberger is valid.
> (One note to a piece by Froberger, which does not mention his
> Protestant or Catholic affiliation, mentions the influence of
> French lutenists -- who presumably used an approximation of
> 12-tet.)

While I think one may assume that Renaissance tuning of fretted
instruments normally did approximate 12-tET, I caution here that
Dowland's lute tuning, which amounts to a well-temperament that
does *not* resemble 12-tET, may have been his own idiosyncrasy,
or it may have been more widespread, based on his impressive
reputation during his lifetime, c 1600. See my webpage on it:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/fngrbds/dowland/dowland.htm

> While musicians of the later 17th century in both Protestant
> and Catholic regions of Europe were moving from the modal
> system to major/minor key tonality, one could argue that it
> was actually Italy in the vanguard, with Corelli (c. 1680)
> providing one popular starting point for the "common practice
> period."

History repeats itself? Based on my research, I'd say Italy
was in the vanguard of many of the stylistic and intonational
trends in medieval and early-modern Europe.

-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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