Re: Re: Werckmeister in the end

IDaniel Wolf:

> This absence of unequal tunings in the 1698 publications
> has to be resolved before any claim can be resolved; I suspect that this
is
> impossible.

Thank you for your measured response. As to the above, _Orgel-Probe_ (1698)
does not specify either ET or his earlier irregular support. Instead W.
indicated the reader read his treatise on the subject which was the 1691
"Musicalische Temperatur." At the end of _Orgel-Probe_ there is no room for
much on tuning, since Werckmeister had detailed it elsewhere. What is
impossible about this explanation?

Thank you, as well, for your translation of the 1707 posthumous _Paradoxal
Discourse_. Based on what I have learned about double negatives in writing a
sentence, Werckmeister is saying the following: "I am inclined, and maintain,
that the diatonic thirds be purer in comparison with seldom used chromatic
differences."

Puzzling to me, is approval by a member of this list of any consensus
(represented you say by Rasch) which considers a "hypothetical" Werckmeister
to have approved of ET late in his life "a theoretical advance." It is
clearly a loss in listening pleasure, based on many experiences.
Intuitively, I believe that Werckmeister was proud of his accomplishments,
and had to soft shoe every so often in order to survive a difficult
environment.

Johnny Reinhard

Johnny Reinhard:

> Thank you for your measured response. As to the above, _Orgel-Probe_
(1698)
> does not specify either ET or his earlier irregular support. Instead W.
> indicated the reader read his treatise on the subject which was the 1691
> "Musicalische Temperatur." At the end of _Orgel-Probe_ there is no room
for
> much on tuning, since Werckmeister had detailed it elsewhere. What is
> impossible about this explanation?

But there was room in the first edition of the _Orgel-Probe_, so why was it
deleted? And was it a coincidence that in the same year that he would also
publish a volume only giving 12tet and a near-copy of 12tet?

<Thank you, as well, for your translation of the 1707 posthumous _Paradoxal
<Discourse_. Based on what I have learned about double negatives in writing
a
<sentence, Werckmeister is saying the following: "I am inclined, and
maintain,
<that the diatonic thirds be purer in comparison with seldom used chromatic
<differences."

In rhetoric, a double negative is very often used when one does not quite
want to make a positive sentence, hence the resigned tone here. A less
literal translation would run:

"In fact, I'm not disinclined towards this. I'll keep on leaving the
diatonic thirds somewhat purer than the more rarely used thirds. This
method of tuning also happens to yield good chromatic alterations."

<Puzzling to me, is approval by a member of this list of any consensus
<(represented you say by Rasch) which considers a "hypothetical"
Werckmeister
<to have approved of ET late in his life "a theoretical advance."

Please don't be puzzled. As much as I advocate alternative intonations, I am
even more an advocate for the truth. However much I would like to believe
that Werckmeister was consistantly committed to unequal cyclical tunings of
which one of his own was a beautiful example, I just can't find that that
position is supported satisfactorily by the evidence available. The lack of
a decisive opinion by Werckmeister on the subject does not happen to
influence my own opinion, nor do I suppose it influenced many of his
contemporaries. (Unlike Kirnberger, he was not himself a composer and the
extent his influence on subsequent musical composition and performance
practice is questionable).

This indecisive outcome of research like this doesn't make things any
easier, but the process of exploring the sources does convey a sense of the
fine texture of the problem and its historical context in a way that is much
more interesting (and I daresay, musically interesting) than had there been
a simple answer.

Daniel Wolf