period performances in unequal temperament

[xochitl]

after discovering Brautigam's Beethoven cycle [which i love more than all others] was done using Lehman tuning, im anxious to find out what other period instrumetalists [or even ensembles] use anything other than equal temperament.

of course it all comes down to modern preference whether or not you agree, but at least it's fasciating and, at least for me, illuminating to hear music in what was is probably a bit closer to the original than 12-et

so far ive only found Egarr, Brautigam, Bezuidenhout, Watchorn, maybe Kirkpatrick

and what about orchestras?  it would be really nice to hear a truly Eb major Eroica! 

[Gurn Blanston]

after discovering Brautigam's Beethoven cycle [which i love more than all others] was done using Lehman tuning, im anxious to find out what other period instrumetalists [or even ensembles] use anything other than equal temperament.

of course it all comes down to modern preference whether or not you agree, but at least it's fasciating and, at least for me, illuminating to hear music in what was is probably a bit closer to the original than 12-et

so far ive only found Egarr, Brautigam, Bezuidenhout, Watchorn, maybe Kirkpatrick

and what about orchestras?  it would be really nice to hear a truly Eb major Eroica! 

Well, there are exceptions to every rule, but AFAIK, pretty much everyone who specializes in music before 1830 (about the time that equal temperament became standard) plays in a particular tuning. There are dozens of them, some are better suited for a particular key and not for another. If the music doesn't involve a keyboard, then temperament doesn't enter into it, of course. But even so, the standard pitch of A = 440hZ is only rarely heard on period instruments. It is not at all uncommon to use A = 415. From which derives the name of Ensemble 415, for instance. 

[xochitl]

If the music doesn't involve a keyboard, then temperament doesn't enter into it, of course.

ive never really understood this

so, is there some kind of 'standard', ensembles will use, or do they just go by ear ad hope for the best?

and what about keyboard concertos?  do they have to use whatever tuning the keyboard has, or what? 

[Gurn Blanston]

ive never really understood this

so, is there some kind of 'standard', ensembles will use, or do they just go by ear ad hope for the best?

and what about keyboard concertos?  do they have to use whatever tuning the keyboard has, or what? 

Well, string instrument without frets can make any possible tone, so a string quartet, for example, doesn't need to match up to anything else, just itself.

Wind instruments need to pick a tone and go with it. Except for valveless ones. That's what the standard note is for. If we all sound  'A', then it needs to all be the same note. But just because we are calling it A, and A today = 440hZ, that doesn't mean that's what we always all agreed upon. The value of A varied even from city to city. So a new musician in town had to make his instrument fit what was there. 

Tuning forks have been around for ages. That's where the 440hZ would come from. Then as now.

Yes, in a keyboard concerto, the orchestra needed to match the keyboard, since a retuning was much harder for him than for anyone else.  So equal temperament was far more important for a keyboard instrument.

There are tons of books and essays on this subject. An hour spent browsing the net would repay you handsomely!    It really is an interesting topic.

[Mandryka]

after discovering Brautigam's Beethoven cycle [which i love more than all others] was done using Lehman tuning, im anxious to find out what other period instrumetalists [or even ensembles] use anything other than equal temperament.

of course it all comes down to modern preference whether or not you agree, but at least it's fasciating and, at least for me, illuminating to hear music in what was is probably a bit closer to the original than 12-et

so far ive only found Egarr, Brautigam, Bezuidenhout, Watchorn, maybe Kirkpatrick

and what about orchestras?  it would be really nice to hear a truly Eb major Eroica! 

Check Walter Riemer's Bach records, Lars Ulrik  Mortensen's Buxtehude and Penelope Crawford's Beethoven (which I've not heard, but I'm sure I read that she uses unequal tuning) There must be some organ records,Silbermann didn't want organs tuned equally I think,  hopefully premont will post about this. I remember reading that Brad Lehman released some organ discs on an American organ tuned in his style.  I don't know about the tunings for Bach's cello and violin sonatas. I do know that Watchorn did not use unequal tuning in his record of violin somatas with Ngai. Neither do I know about the tuning in recordings of the Couperin Viol duos.

I've been listening to Egarr's WTC2 this week a bit. I like what he does. Maybe his thread will prompt me to hear Watchorn's new record of French Suites.

[Superhorn]

    Don't fret about it !

[Brian]

Penelope Crawford's Beethoven (which I've not heard, but I'm sure I read that she uses unequal tuning)

What a great CD that is. My 2011 Recording of the Year, in fact.

From an Amazon review:
"No mention of temperament is made on the jacket or in the notes of this CD, but tuning-sensitive ears will readily hear that something is different in this soundscape. The cadences and many other chords are more consonant and tranquil, more resolved, while the modulations to distant keys are more piquant and unsettling. That's not by chance. This fortepiano is NOT tuned to the equal temperament of our contemporary concert pianos. Instead, it has been tuned to a modified 1/6 comma meantone, a tuning very close to the Valotti temperament that was 'normal' in Beethoven's lifetime. Actually, Penelope Crawford has acknowledged to me, personally, that the specific temperament she used is what musicologist Bradley Lehman purports to have deciphered from the original edition of JS Bach's "Well-Tempered Klavier.""

[Mandryka]

In his Virtual Haydn Tom Beghin records some ofthe music on instruments tuned unequally, including the Sauschneider Capriccio,which he writes about extensively in the liner notes, saying inter alia:


". . . a unique Capriccio on
the folk tune "Acht Sauschneider müssen sein," Hob. XVII :1 (1765). Standardization—
whether it relates to tuning, instrument, notation, rhetoric, or performance—is definitely
not the keyword here. . .

For the Capriccio, we deliberately chose to tune the harpsichord in a quarter-comma
mean tone temperament. This tuning, though referred to as the "old" system, was
still explained in an 1805 Viennese tuning manual. Certain extant organs or fretted
clavichords confirm that the temperament was used well into the eighteenth century.
The unavoidable "wolf's fifth" in our tuning is between E-flat and G-sharp. The pain, as
I play my first D-sharp, is excruciating. It's not the howling of a wolf, but (enough with
decorum!) the squealing of a pig."

It's a wicked performance of a wicked piece of music.

He recorded the big E flat major sonata twice, once with equal temperament and once with unequal, the difference is worth hearing for sure. He writes:

We recorded Sonata no. 52 twice: first, showcasing its English roots (BD 3, tracks 31-33),
then, in its Viennese appropriation (BD 3, tracks 20-22). The tuning systems used for
each performance reflect a similar shift from the specific to the generic. In England, we
used a "well temperament" by Thomas Young, as submitted to the Royal Society in 1799.
In Vienna, we bet on the future with Johann Nepomuk Hummel's "easy and convenient"
quasi-equal temperament of 1829. (In 1803 Haydn recommended Hummel as his
successor at the Esterházy Court.) The shock of an equal temperament—which comes
across as bland after extended exposure to the various colors of unequal tunings—
reminds us of another cultural prejudice: it is perfectly possible that listeners used to
modern tuning will find our earlier temperaments shocking.

I'm listening to all this with spotify, admittedly through a very god hi fi. I wonder if the sound is better on the discs -- whether the ambience of the rooms, which Beghin and his team are clearly proud to have captured, comes across better.

[prémont]

Check Walter Riemer's Bach records, Lars Ulrik  Mortensen's Buxtehude and Penelope Crawford's Beethoven (which I've not heard, but I'm sure I read that she uses unequal tuning) There must be some organ records,Silbermann didn't want organs tuned equally I think,  hopefully premont will post about this.

In short:

It is probably safe to assume, that meantone tuning (already by itself a modification of the pure Pythagorean tuning) was the standard of the Renaissance age and that the Baroque age saw the appearance of a wide number of modified meantone temperatures, the purpose of which was to ensure, that the most commonly used modes (with few accidentals) sounded as pure as possible, without making the less used modes (with many accidentals) completely unplayable. Theoreticians like Kirnberger, Werckmeister and Valotti lent names to some of these modifications.

The organs of the baroque age were preferably tuned using some of these modicications, and the equal tuning only became predominant  in the course of the nineteenth century. However quite a lot of the old organs were retuned in the romantic  age to equal temperature. Some of these have recently in the process of restoring been retuned to the original unequal temperature  or something similar f.i. the Treutmann organ, Grauhof Monastery and the Trost organ in Altenburg.  But other prominent historical organs are (still) tuned equally f.i. the Hagerbeer/F.C.Schnitger organ in St. Laurenskerk, Alkmaar,  which atypically  is reported tuned equally since Schnitger´s rebuild 1725 and the Müller organ St. Bavo, Haarlem.

Some newly built neobaroque organs have been tuned unequally f.i. the Ahrend organ in San Simpliciano, Milano, but most of the so called neobaroque organs (by Metzler, Marcussen et.c.) are tuned equally. The CD booklets sometimes mention the temperature of the organ, but if nothing is mentioned, this will as well as always mean, that the temperature is equal.

It may sometimes be difficult to hear whether the temperature of an organ is equal or unequal. But in equal temperature the problem arises, that every note in any key is rather much out of tune with the partials of the foundation note, and the aliquot stops (e.g. quint or tertz sounding stops which exists separately as well as parts of mixture stops) are equally out of tune with the partials of the foundation stops. This results in an extended  number of "false" sounding  sounds with high frequencies, and it is this phenomenon, which is a very important factor in the creation of the "white" colourless or "generic" sound of these organs, in the same way which you (in optics) get a white colour by mixing lots of different colours. 

[Mandryka]

The  Pro Arte quartet sound to me as though they to tune their instruments not-well (how do you say that?) in their Haydn records. I have no idea how authentic that is. And sometimes I think the same when I hear Cuarteto Casals in Op 33: what do others think about that? It's hard for me to say.

Thanks for the reply premont -- give me some time to read it.

This famous Haydn humour that Gurn mentions. Is that how people saw him in his own time -- as a funny man? I really could do with a good book on his reception history.

[prémont]

Thanks for the reply premont -- give me some time to read it.

You are welcome.

Part two of my post will be the listing of some examples of Bach organ recordings on instruments tuned unequally.

[PaulSC]

The  Pro Arte quartet sound to me as though they to tune their instruments not-well (how do you say that?) in their Haydn records. I have no idea how authentic that is. And sometimes I think the same when I hear Cuarteto Casals in Op 33: what do others think about that? It's hard for me to say.

I haven't heard either of those recordings, and I may only be stating the obvious, but the violin family is of course a collection of untempered instruments. The performers are not committed to any particular tuning in advance; rather, the members of a string quartet are constantly judging their tuning relative to one another. An a capella choral group is engaged in much the same process, without the constraint of fixed open strings...

[prémont]

I haven't heard either of those recordings, and I may only be stating the obvious, but the violin family is of course a collection of untempered instruments. The performers are not committed to any particular tuning in advance

I would ask you to elaborate your use of the word "untempered" in this context.

[Gurn Blanston]

I would ask you to elaborate your use of the word "untempered" in this context.

Outside chance I'm wrong, but I am quite sure that he means that there is no 'equal or unequal' temperament issue with unfretted string instruments. And he is absolutely correct. 'Well-tempered' is a keyboard issue.

[PaulSC]

Outside chance I'm wrong, but I am quite sure that he means that there is no 'equal or unequal' temperament issue with unfretted string instruments. And he is absolutely correct. 'Well-tempered' is a keyboard issue.

That was indeed my intended meaning.

[Mandryka]

Violinists have to decide how to tune their instrument, look here:

http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=18867

This comment on the Pro Arte's Haydn quartets mentions their just intonation:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000003XKM/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

[PaulSC]

Violinists have to decide how to tune their instrument, look here:

http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=18867

This comment on the Pro Arte's Haydn quartets mentions their just intonation:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000003XKM/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

String players must indeed tune their open strings, either in perfect fifths or by compromising the interval slightly in order to better accommodate this distantly related keys. But that leaves the tuning of individual notes relatively free. Only one note, the instrument's lowest, MUST be played on an open string. A few other notes can be played on open strings (in some contexts, they have to be played thus), and a few other notes resonate strongly with open strings. But the issue of tuning is largely a matter of moment-to-moment decisions. I'd wager that the Pro Arte reviewer is responding to the colorful effect of some of the quartet's local tuning choices, rather than reporting with any accuracy on the use of a single and fixed just-intonation tuning.

[PaulSC]

Simon Standage discusses the issue of string quartet tuning at length, and with historical perspective, in an essay entitled "Historical awareness in quartet performance," in The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet, ed. Robin Stowell.

The following link should jump you into page 138 and an interesting example based on Joachim: Standage p. 138