Good morning,
there is a project around this kind of enharmonic keyboard in
Basel/Switzerland, which is run by this very Johannes Keller and a team,
that includes also Martin Kirnbauer, an expert on enharmonic instruments)
and others.
Their website http://www.projektstudio31.com contains some information in
German. Besides the *Clavemusicum omnitonum* with 31 notes/octave, they are
going to build also an *Arciorgano* with 36 keys/octave (but probably 31
pitches/octave, i. e. 5 pitches are doubled).
It will be an interesting historical reconstruction and both valuable for
exploring the enharmonic music around Vicentino and contemporaries but also
worth for exploring new ways.
31 notes/octave both allow for a just intonation (JI) concept according to
N. Vicentino and for a fully circulating equal temperament, virtually a 1/5
pythagorean comma temperament. The latter might have been the more common
way to use 31-notes. Exponents were Christiaan Huygens in the 17th century
and in the 20th century the Dutch composer Adriaan Fokker (the 31-note
organ he used is today in Amsterdam in the stichting Huygens-Fokker).
The practice of 31-enharmonic keyboard - either JI or ET – extended into
the whole 17th century:
Frescobaldi's teacher Luzzasschi is said to have been a virtuoso on 31-note
keyboards (not to mention the more frequent 19-note/octave instruments).
Frescobaldi's student Froberger, again, worked in his time at the imperial
court of the Habsburgs in a surrounding that (comparatively) brimmed with
such instruments. All the Habsburgian courts of Vienna, Prague, Innsbruck,
and Graz all had 19-note/octave harpsichords and/or organs, and in Vienna
and Innsbruck 31-note/octave harpsichords existed.***
Froberger's opus ranges however from g-flat, d-flat, a-flat ... through
... a#, e#, b#, being the typical and exact range for 19 keys/octave.
A connection to Froberger might further be probable late in the 17th
century in the work of Mihály Bulyowsky de Dulicz (Michael Buliovszky). He
had access to a substantial part Froberger's unpublished work. For the
present topic, however, it is important that his interest in the
31-note/octave system and his advocacy of it is documented in his
publication 1680 about "improving the organ" ** with this kind of
keyboard.
The ideas about enharmonicism are interesting per se, of course, but there
are problems in the concept.
One problem is certainly the practicability of dealing with 31 or 36 keys,
which makes spreading the concept (more than a curiosity) and a more common
use at least difficult if not impossible.
In an organ it is the tripled amount of pipes that needs space, causes
weight and/or transportation problems (in positive organs) and therefore is
likely to reduce the size to just one stop/organ. Four octaves C-c''' would
mean a hundred thirty to hundred fifty pipes – depending on the shape of
the lowest octave– for one stop alone, equalling three stops in a ordinary
12-note/instrument.
Another problem might be the musical effect of the enharmonic "comma
shifts" (Komma-Rückungen) resulting in enharmonic progressions that may be
experienced as unpleasant or at least detracting, as David's experience
indicates.
One could speculate about whether chromatic shifts as in meantone (extended
meantone) could possibly form a limit of acceptance. That's the kind of
shifts we hear in the music of Carlo Gesualdo or Ascanio Mayone. An example
on my 19-note/octave harpsichord played by Christopher Stembridge can be
heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY9yx5UeKqc followed by the
same and the ensemble *Musica Ficta* from Copenhagen
The example also highlights, what in my opinion was a main function of
enharmonic keyboards: A tool to support rehearsing ensemble intonation and
to accompany ensembles.
I would be cautious to dismiss enharmonic shifts, though, since we do not
have a greater experience of the practical effects of the 31-concept
(wether JI or meantone ET) and its possibilities until now. The 31-note
equal temperament, which comes rather close to meantone temperament, might
be experienced as more pleasant (in David's sense) than the JI-version
(31/36).
In terms of ensemble practice a flexible (adaptive) just intonation using
just 12 notes/octave as in the *Hermode system* by Werner Mohrlok appears
to me the most viable way around the comma shifts. While it has existed in
electronic keyboards in three decades, it seems impossible to apply such a
flexible approach in a stringed keyboard instrument, if the sound quality
is not to be detrimental.
In an organ this is different: This summer I have been listening and
experimenting with the "Dynamically tunable organ" developed by the firm
Voigt in Bad Liebenwerda. The organ is a fully mechanical instrument, 12
notes per octave, five stops, pleasantly voiced. It allows retuning of each
pipe within a range of nearly +/- 25 Cent without that the voicing is
affected in a detrimental way – actually even the most extreme instant
changes are hardly affecting the high voicing quality at all (this was what
actually convinced me extraordinarily).
The electronics kick in in two ways that do not interfere with the organ's
keyboard or tracker action: For each pipe there is a finely tuned (!)
magnetic mechanism that can change the sounding length of the air column
without touching the pipes. Sensors report the movement of the keys to a
computer which instantly calculates the chord progression and finds the
optimum - within less than 30 milliseconds the pipes' virtual sounding
lengths have been changed and the chord is pure (various degrees of purity
can be preset). Another advantage of this organ is that basically any
temperament can be used with in the above limit (one can actually switch
between temperaments, while the organ is being played, an amazing resource).
The mechanism can be seen in a (too) short demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovNdMJldjM
Note: The sound of the organ in this video does not match the actual fine
sound quality at all!
I am currently working on a larger research application, commissioned by a
German school of music, in which we will make use of this instrument
Kind regards
Ibo
PS:
* Gerhard Stradner: "Saitenklaviere in österreichischen Inventaren".
–– In: *Das
Österreichische Cembalo, 600 Jahre Cembalobau in Österreich, *ed. by Alfons
Huber and Hans Schneider. Tutzing: Schneider, 2001, p. 329-342.
** Michælis Bvliowski* ... Brevis de emendatione organi musici tractatio.
Kurtze vorstellung von verbesserung des orgelwercks*. Argentorati
[Strasbourg]: J. E. Zetzner, 1680. (In Latin and German. Facsimile ed. by
Peter Williams. Buren: Knuf, 1988).
At 21:56 01-12-15, Beth .Garfinkel wrote:
> >
> >Does anyone know who built this instrument? Would anyone here like to
> >'fess up?
> >
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0akGtDPVRxk
>
>
2015-12-03 8:11 GMT+01:00 David Pickett <[log in to unmask]>:
> It says at the end:
>
> Johannes Keller, Cimbalo Cromatico
>
> Harpsichord after Grimaldi by Tony Chinnery
> Keyboard inspired by Zarlino/Transuntino/Salinas/etc., built by Marcus
> Krebs
* * * * * *
Dr. Ibo Ortgies
(PhD, musicology), Researcher, Translator
LinkedIn Profile <http://se.linkedin.com/pub/ibo-ortgies/12/9a3/3b3>
= = = = =
Ibo Ortgies Language & Research Services <http://www.iboortgies.com>
Göteborg, Sweden
= = = = =
University of Gothenburg
Göteborg Organ Art Center (GOArt),
Göteborg, Sweden
= = = = =
Private homepage <http://sites.google.com/site/iboortgies/>
>
>
>
>
>
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