Hi,
the most reliable information I can find online about the original
instrument (rather than some entirely unrelated modern tuning?) is here -
written by John Barnes :
http://clavichord.org.uk/More/CinB/Clavichords_in_Britain_No_3.html
"There is, of course, no point in measuring the distances at the tops of
the tangents, which only yield evidence of the adjustments made by tuners,
usually recent ones. It is the position of the tangents at their feet that
reveals the intention of the maker (..) and in many cases, this one
included, there is a scribed line along the tail of each key to show where
the maker intended to put his tangents. My measurements were taken from
these scribed lines (..)."
"Hubert’s semitones are (..) 89 cents on average. There is no significant
difference between the degrees of the scale."
"Semitones of constant sizes for different notes of the scale are
characteristic of meantone and this had led Angelo Mondino, *Il Clavicordo*,
Lucca (1993), p. 109, to postulate that Hubert intended sixth-comma
meantone (Silbermann's temperament), the chromatic semitones of which are
89 cents. This is exactly the observed value, but I think it is most
unlikely that sixth-comma meantone was in use on clavichords in 1784."
"It is obviously better, if a range of fretting values is required, to set
the feet of the tangents to match the smallest of the required frets. (...)
"I therefore think that Hubert's keys were cut and marked out for tangents
in a way that provided the tuner with suitable sizes for any of the
temperaments of Werckmeister's kind, sizes which needed only slight bending
of the tangents (..). Unfortunately this reasoning does not lead to any
particular temperament, but only suggests that Hubert was content to leave
the choice to the tuner."
There are large numbers of similar fretted clavichords known by Hubert,
however it does not seem that investigations of their fretting distances
have been done. It would not be at all surprising to me if they were all
marked out with ~89-cent semitones to accommodate a basic regular
1/6-comma-like temperament, then subsequent adjustments would be done by
bending tangents to the player's taste.
Or .. by bending *notes* by means of finger pressure while playing.
Of course Hubert did not use, or think in terms of, cents. He would use
ratios of whole numbers as the most obvious and direct method to mark out
the length of a semitone from one fret to the next.
2 to the power of 89/1200 is 1.0528, which is almost exactly 19/20.
Thus, Hubert could very plausibly have just divided the string length to
the longer fret into 20 and taken 1 part for the short fret. There might
be no reason to change this simple method throughout his entire career as
clavichord builder.
Whose plans are you using, btw?
Best, Tom
P.S. if you can hear temperaments :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9e8Brkz3hc
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