Thank you, friends.



With a bit of trepidation, in line with David's suggestion, last night I left out the D#'s, allowing singers and unfretted strings and winds to carry the major third. It worked! Thanks for the encouragement!



We have the pleasure of Bruce Dickey as lead cornetto. And our "three tenors" are astounding. It will be a fun weekend.



Bruce



On 5/9/17, 8:22 PM, "Harpsichords and Related Topics on behalf of Keith Womer" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:



    On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 5:55 PM, Davitt MORONEY <[log in to unmask]>

    wrote:

    

    > The thing that often seems to be left out of discussions about temperament

    > is how the continuo player reacts at the keyboard in terms of voicing the

    > chords.

    >

    

    ​I have used Davitt's techniques for dealing with a non split-sharp

    instrument in performance using meantone temperamant. It works as well as

    possible, but give me split sharps any day. The right tool for the job sort

    of thing.

    

    One of my harpsichords is an early 17th century Italian by Owen Daly.  It

     has two split sharps per octave and a short octave bass.  Single strung,

    p-wire, quill, incredible projection for its size - what a beauty!  I'll be

    using it for Monteverdi Vespers this week in fact, for which it is ideal.

    

    One other workaround I have used for the Vespers for a non-split sharp

    instrument is to tune one of the E-flats to D-sharp (I tune D#-2).  As

    Davitt notes, when not the root of the chord, the tenor E-flat is not

    horrible when used as D#, but it is still annoying if there is also a lower

    string in the continuo group.  Otherwise using the D#-2 is good if you can

    maneuver your realization up there as necessary.

    

    It is unlikely any of this was necessary for Monteverdi's organist, as the

    organs around there had split sharps (and were Italian instruments with

    soft principals, not flutes, as a foundation.)  For Monteverdi's Vespers at

    least, I find our charming 8'4'2' flute chamber instruments to be a weak

    approximation for what is called for by Monteverdi.

    

    BTW, another problematic work for me is Dido and Aeneas, where one aria

    throws a spanner into an otherwise straightforward meantone-based

    accompaniment on a non-split sharp instrument.  Wish I could ask Purcell

    about it.

    

    Keith Womer

    

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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 .

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