Hi Claudio and Andrew,

Yes, one can also tune the keyboard to the string players. It depends who's playing, and this may be the best method for those musicians and tuners who are not the best. For what it's worth, here's a practical compromise from 1771, a just keyboard tuning with open fifths designed for accompanying strings, recommended by J.A.P. Schulz (regarded by music historians as one of the most important 18th-century music teachers in Scandinavia).  Schulz explicitly says it's an ultra-easy method to use, has good key character, and is especially good for accompanying strings. He wrote many of the encyclopedia articles on music, but as far as I remember Kirnberger was overseer and took the credit (and presumably payment too). I think this tuning (or Schulz' article?) is also recommended in Diderot's encyclopedia, but forget where.

  1.  Tune pure 5ths and 4th c-g-d.
  2.  Tune e a pure third above c.
  3.  From e tune pure fifths and fourths e-b-f#.
  4.  Tune pure fifths/fourths c-f-bflat [-eflat-aflat-dflat].
  5.  Tune a equally out with d (partial on a) and with c (partial on e).
  6.
Recommended for harpsichord/piano to accompany strings. Source: Johann Georg Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste, vol.4, entry "Stimmung". 2nd enlarged edition, Leipzig 1794, p.465. (Author: Schulz). This edition available on archive.org, in 18th-century German.  As a tuning scheme it has similarities with the so-called "Erlangen" clavichord tuning (mid 15th century: may have grown out of 14th-century adjustments to Pythagorean tuning). Annette Otterstedt advocated its use for organs when accompanying viols in 17th-century music, in Chelys vol.25, p.32-52 (with high scepticism ratings among reviewers because of the lack of 17th-c. evidence).  I'd be interested if anyone knows similar (admittedly low-brow) tuning schemes, other than those which I have already found discussed in Claudio's book on unequal temperaments and the literature before it. Maybe a good tuning for Christmas carols.

Greetings from a cold & clammy Ireland,

Michael


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