> Andrew wrote:
I don't believe the strings should adapt to the harpsichord temperament - it
is a necessary compromise for the inflexible keyboard machine, not required
for the instruments with continuously fine adjustable pitch.
... Have you ever heard an orchestra play in equal temperament with a piano?
I don't recall such. ... But this is a long thread we could open up. I am
sure our colleague Claudio could inform us as to what the historical
treatises have to say about ensemble tuning.
Hi Andrew.
If the keyboard is tuned to 1/4 S.c. meantone, there is no way strings can
be tuned to pure fifths without serous comma-mistunings (>1/5th semitone).
Which is why the best Baroque teachers advised to tune the open strings of
the violin to the keyboard.
Later in mid 18th century different temperament were in use (ordinaire in
France, good-temperaments in Germany, circularised 1/6 comma in Italy) and
violinists added to the mix the new fad, tuning open strings to pure fifths.
As the cacophony became serious, d'Alembert (d’Alembert, Jean-le-Rond.
Élémens de Musique, théorique et pratique, suivant les principes de M.
Rameau. Ch.VII “Du tempérament”. David l'Ainé, Paris 1752) suggested that
the most practical way to mitigate the issue was to tune the keyboard to
Equal Temperament, which was soon adopted universally for this and other
well-known reasons.
Ever since, with the piano tuned to E.T. playing with string instruments,
the latter can be tuned by pure fifths and the minimum discrepancies are
easy to resolve in practice.
But back to our main interest, matters are very different when we have
instead of an E.T.piano a harpsichord tuned to unequal temperaments!
In this case it is absolutely necessary that the strings tune in unison with
the keyboard to avoid serious mistuning.
For more details on the history of violin tuning, rather than directly
quoting historical treatises, often difficult to find, to translate and to
understand, it is best to read it all together in the latest revised work by
the leading expert in the field, included in the treatise
Barbieri, Patrizio. Enharmonic Instruments and Music 1470-1900. Il Levante,
Latina 2008.
Best
CDV
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Note: opinions expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the individual con-
tributors and not necessarily those of the list owners nor of the Uni-
versity of Iowa. For a brief summary of list commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask] saying HELP .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
|
