You wrote:
 
>
>On Wed, 23 Nov 1994, D. Kelzenberg wrote:
>
>> Just as an aside, can you imagine Louis Couperin's Pavanne in
f-minor?
>> Or, Beethoven's 5th Symphony in b-minor?
>
>Beethoven's 5th Symphony in b-minor is better-known as the piano
sonata,
>Op. 5, by Richard Strauss.
>
>A few days ago you cited the famous bit about CPE learning from his
father
>to tune all thirds wide.  I want to emphasize what you said along with
>that, that it doesn't necessarily mean all the major thirds are
uniformly
>wide.  And it doesn't necessarily mean that Bach tuned directly by
thirds
>instead of primarily by fifths; perhaps the thirds were only checks of
>notes already obtained, or the primary criterion by which one judged
>whether the keys have pleasing differences of quality/color.  And it
>doesn't necessarily mean that even the intervals C-E, F-A, or G-B were
>wide, because they might not have been tuned as thirds.  And it doesn't
>necessarily say anything about diminished fourths such as G#-C, which
>perhaps were not tuned as thirds anyway.  And it doesn't say anything
>about there not being a wolf, either.
>
>So the CPE quote can't be used to "prove" anything incontrovertible.
The
>only thing it seems to argue for is that by the time CPE was old enough
to
>learn these things, his father didn't use regular 1/4 comma meantone or
>1/3 comma meantone, which would have pure or smaller major thirds.
That
>doesn't tell us much that we weren't already convinced of.
>
>Speaking of 1/3 comma meantone, the first time I heard the beatless
>diminished-seventh chord in the first track of Parmentier's
17th-Century
>French CD (produced by Joseph Spencer), I had to back up the laser and
>hear that chord a few more times just by itself.  Yep, that's what you
get
>when you stack up three pure 6:5 minor thirds, all right.
>
> |\      _,,,--,,_  ,)          Bradley Lehman, [log in to unmask]
> /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;'
>|,4-  ) )-,_ ) /\               The 7:6 ratio minor third hath charms
>'---''(_/--' (_/-'              to soothe the savage breast...and put
hair
>                                on it.
>
While recording that very passage, Parmentier threw his arms in the air,
and exclaimed, "Joseph! When I play that chord all the hair stands up on
my arms!"  "Exactly", thought I.