harmoniehammerfluegel

Stephen Birkett forwarded the following to the pianotech list; perhaps a
year ago, Manuel kindly had pointed out to me the photo he'd uploaded of
its keyboard at ftp://ella.mills.edu/ccm/tuning/images/fluegel31.gif

> On my holiday this summer I was in Vienna and paid a visit to the
> collection of musical instruments of the museum of art history. There
> was a beautiful 31-tone Harmoniehammerfluegel built by Johann Jakob
> K"onnicke in Vienna and finished in July 1796. It has 6 rows of
> 37 white keys and a range of F1-g'''. The keys of the C
> columns have a large dot on it and the keys of the F and G columns
three small
> dots. The layout of the five upper rows is as follows:
>
> Fx Gx Ax Bx Cx Dx Ex Fx Gx Ax ...
> F# G# A# B# C# D# E# F# G# A# ...
> F G A B C D E F G A ...
> Fb Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb Fb Gb Ab ...
> Fbb Gbb Abb Bbb Cbb Dbb Ebb Fbb Gbb Abb ...
>
> The keys of the bottom row are coupled to other keys. This layout
> enables an easy shift by a chromatic semitone of 77.4 cents by
> changing a row.
>
> Beethoven and Haydn have played on this piano, which was tuned in 31
tET.
> K"onnicke built it with instructions of the Domkapellmeister of Linz,
> Johann Georg
> Roser who had ordered a similar instrument in Brussels ten years
earlier for
> Mozart. Roser had several meetings in Linz with Mozart, who allegedly
composed
> two little pieces for the instrument (according to the manuscript of
Roser's
> biography), and which were regrettably lost.
>
> This Harmoniehammerfluegel shows the importance meantone temperament
still
> had at the end of the 18th century in Vienna. According to Herbert
> Kelletat had
> Mozart meantone temperament in consideration when he chose the keys
for his
> keyboard compositions. Kelletat analysed 230 compositions with
> employment of a
> keyboard instrument or organ and found that more than 80% is in C, G,
D,
> F, A and
> B flat major, exactly the same keys that have pure thirds in meantone
temperament.
> E flat and E major are exceptions and B major is absent. Moreover in
45
> symphonies Mozart used only 8 different main keys among which only a
few
> minor.
>
> ...
> Reference: Herbert Kelletat: Zur musikalischen Temperatur, Teil II,
"Wiener
> Klassik". Berlin: Merseburger Verlag, 1982, pp. 22-32.
>

(originally posted by Ibo Ortieges)