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Subject:
From:
"J. Claudio Di Veroli" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 4 Dec 2016 19:52:34 +0100
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> Ibo wrote: And the idea of equal temperament (ET) for Froberger rests also
on the anecdote around the latter's teacher Frescobaldi.
That is the anecdote provide by Doni, who wrote about it in a letter to
Mersenne: According to Doni a ragged old man from Sicily convinced
Frescobaldi with wine to use ET. Doni's the only source to my knowledge, but
he also states that the musicians in Rome (among them Frescobaldi) realised
the "imperfection of that tuning" and that singers didn't like to sing to
it, "one abandoned it".

Doni was wrong. The matter has been fully researched in 

http://www.patriziobarbieri.it/pdf/frescobaldiano.pdf

In this work, dated in 1986, Barbieri fully discussed the matter and noted
that quite a few Italian composers followed Frescobaldi in his ET
preference: he specifically scrutinised the case of Valentini 1642-45 and
his students, Lobkowitz a few years later. Let me translate from the Italian
original Barbieri's "Conclusioni":

'From what we have seen it emerges that in Rome -- since 1639 and for at
least two decades -- the temperament "of the equal semitones" was adopted
(on the harpsichord) by a small but very combative minority of musicians,
both theoretical and practical. Girolamo Frescobaldi therefore came into
this matter when his keyboard works had already been printed. 

 
> Even, if Frescobaldi tried it for a short time, there is no reason to
assume that ET was favoured for rendering any of his compositions. ...

Here we agree: in spite of the minority of ET followers, the favoured
contemporary solution for Frescobaldi's compositions was surely the keyboard
with the split sharps.
 
Best regards,

CDV


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