Wolfing it down

Enough with silly titles, but I wanted to thank "wolfmeister" Daniel Wolf
for including the references on meantone that Paul Hahn (whose father is a
mathematician) cites in TD 544:7.

>>http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html
>>http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/meantone.html

Paul Hahn:
>No, this comma is the Pythagorean comma.

Of course, even I had noticed the obvious error of the last, and was going
to mention it on the list, but Paul Hahn beat me to it, also adding the
other error of which I was unaware. [TD544:7]. For me, the most striking
aspect of these articles was the fact that musicians *WANTED* variations
between keys, as evidenced in meantone and, purportedly, Werkmeister III.
I had no idea that some of the actual *structural* parts of pieces were
dependent on some of these anomalies. That sure means we've been hearing a
*LOT* of pieces wrong, and for a long time!... It's amazing that 12-tET
could ride "roughshod" over all this history... but, perhaps people were
"mesmerized" by the smoothness and functionality, as some of Paul Erlichs
W. A. Mathieu quotations seem to suggest... [Citation by Dan Sterns in
recent 544:8.]

______________
Joseph Pehrson

I posted the two articles (errors and all) not to illustrate the content but
rather as one example demonstrating that there are other musical communities
out there who have been open for a long time to tunings other than 12tet.
Among the most prestigious organs built in the last generation are those of
Fisk and Brumbaugh, and they feature historical tunings. In fact, the Fisk
organ at Stanford (which has been well recorded) takes advantage of the
tones shared by meantone and Werck. III and allows one to shift the
instrument from one tuning to the other.

I'm not a subscriber to the organ list, but a search through the archives
turns up such a large number of instruments mentioned in historical tunings
that I suspect we actually have been hearing a lot of pieces correctly --
and for a long time.

>That sure means we've been hearing a
> *LOT* of pieces wrong, and for a long time!... >
> ______________
> Joseph Pehrson