Does "Unequal Temperament" refer to a specific tuning, or is the term used generically?
For what it's worth, I used to have a technician who regularly tuned my piano to a well temperament (the Thomas Young temperament of 1799, which he believed would suit Romantic-era repertoire). As explained to me, certain intervals would be found to have escalating dissonance as their key signatures became increasingly remote from C major/a minor, i.e., that F-sharp major and D-sharp minor (and their enharmonic equivalents) would have the greatest tension or piquancy in those intervals and chords containing them.
I liked the idea, in theory, of playing Chopin in a temperament close to that actually used in the early 19th century. In reality, though, I found that the difference was too slight to be truly significant.
Maybe with ear training I could appreciate it more, but another consideration is that any typical piano begins to drift out of tune immediately after tuning. Except on a freshly tuned instrument, the distinctions between equal temperament and various unequal temperaments would be even more subtle (if not blurred completely).
Listening to these recordings didn’t change my mind or persuade me that historical tunings are very consequential (for me, anyway). And as to whether Chopin should be played with unequal temperaments, I don’t think it matters
I’ve seen lists, and read discussions, of purported associations between key signatures and specific sentiments or emotions. Personally, I think that the feelings we associate with various key signatures are derived from the pieces with which we’re familiar in the respective keys.
Universal perception of certain attributes of “key color” for a given key doesn’t make sense,
and some of those in the list provided are quaint, hilarious or absurdly off the mark. (A-flat major—Chopin’s most frequent choice by far—was assuredly not the “key of the grave” for him; it is the voice of some of his warmest, lushest and most ardently romantic compositions.)
2. Lento A minorPious womanliness and tenderness of character.
4. Largo E minorNaive, womanly innocent declaration of love, lament without grumbling; sighs accompanied by few tears; this key speaks of the imminent hope of resolving in the pure happiness of C major.
5. Molto allegro D majorThe key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key.
10. Molto allegro C-sharp minorPenitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God, the friend and help-meet of life; sighs of disappointed friendship and love lie in its radius.
15. Sostenuto D-flat major ("Raindrop Prelude")A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.
17. Allegretto A-flat majorKey of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius.
22. Molto agitato G minorDiscontent, uneasiness, worry about a failed scheme; bad-tempered gnashing of teeth; in a word: resentment and dislike.
24. Allegro appassionato D minorMelancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood.
I still think it would be interesting to compare the impressions, pictures, thoughts, that the preludes inspire to each of us. I myself never knew there were so many "subtitles", like "duel", "suicide", etc. until I sarted researching them.
Robert Collett [sic] records that Baudelaire, 'paraphrasing' Delacroix, described it as 'a brilliant bird flying over the horrors of an abyss' ....
I thought the "funny" remarks were a disappointing reminder that the requisite critical mass for discussion of serious topics is frequently not available. There's just no accounting for the sorts of threads that have immediate traction and those that don't get off the ground.
I have listened through these links that you have listed - certainly, not completely, but bits here and there. I wish there had been more of a direct comparision. Let's say, the funeral march played in unequal temperament and then played on a normal "modern" keyboard. Back to back. . . . Maybe I have no ear at all and I'm completely insensitive to the finer aspects of unequal temperament. Excuse my ignorance, but I have googled around trying to find out if Chopin or Schumann used the equal or unequal temperament. . . . I couldn't help but feel that the cinematrographic tricks (black and white old film illusion) used in the funeral march recording you presented were trying to convince us that this was the "sound" heard in the 19th century.
Kirnberger held that a good temperament ‘must not injure the variegation of the keys’ (1776–9), and his disciple (in this regard) Tempelhof in 1775, while acknowledging that any key could express any affect, held nonetheless that in a good temperament each key would do so in its own particular way (‘auf eine ihnen angemessene Art’) and that without such expressive resources music would be ‘nothing more than a harmonious noise that tickles the ear but leaves the heart slumbering away in a disgusting indifference’. In 1780 the polymath J.J. Engel, in a book dedicated to Reichardt, placed the choice of key before melody and harmony as a resource of musical portrayal, and said that among the major keys, C and A differed most since the steps of their scales differed most.In 1784 Cramer’s Magazin der Musik reported that Clementi used a tuning in which C–E was tempered ‘ein klein wenig hoch schwebend’ (‘beating, slightly high’), E–G ‘sehr hoch’ (‘very high’) and A–C ‘noch höher’ (‘even higher’). In 1785 Mozart’s pupil Thomas Attwood recorded in his notebook that G was a note which ‘the Harpsichord has not, but all other instruments have’ (Chesnut, 1977). According to A.F. Schindler (1860), Beethoven in his last years maintained a keen interest in the expressive characteristics of different keys and suggested that they were most apparent in piano music. It is unclear to what extent Beethoven may have attributed the differences to acoustical factors, but his piano music does in fact benefit from an 18th-century unequal temperament (Lindley and others, 1997, chap. 5).In 1826 the leading champion of Viennese Classical music in Italy, Peter Lichtenthal, wrote that equal temperament ‘cannot subsist’ or else the keys would lose their character and ‘one could equally [well] compose a nocturne in A minor or a military blare in A’ – an opinion that was excised, however, in Dominique Mondo’s French translation 13 years later. Yet the late Baroque associations of different qualities with different keys cast their shadows far into the 19th century. This legacy warrants investigation. A good point of departure is that Schubert’s piano music benefits from an unequal well-tempered tuning if the nuances are subtle enough that C–E is tempered more than half as much as in equal temperament (rendering E suitable to such melodious uses as shown in ex.15) and D–F is no nearer in size to a Pythagorean 3rd than to an equal-tempered one (since Schubert used very freely the key of D major). Equally telling is the curious fact that D minor, the most eminent of keys in Baroque keyboard music and one that to a large extent retained its old mean-tone-like sound in the 18th-century irregular temperaments, was the key least favoured by Chopin, except in the last and most magnificent of his 24 preludes.
The second is that of academic precedent - possibly at around the same time that I realised that Chopin's keys were clearly exploiting temperament - (why else compose in the remote keys to the extent that he did?)
We have also tested the Schaumann Carnaval:Today Adolfo Barabino brought his Masterclass students and demonstrated a piece of Chopin in C# and then he transposed it into C - it might have been F# and F or Ab and G - I don't recall - but he posed the question to his students "Why did Chopin write this in this key - it's not simply a matter of pitch". When Adolfo played in the transposed white key rather than the black key as written, there was a contrast as between the descriptions "solid" and "fragile". This should be audible and hopefully, to anyone who knows these pieces well, there should be an audible effect.Can anyone hear these effects?It's certainly audible in the 2nd Sonata: as explained and illustrated:Does this lead to a different appreciation of these works or is it merely a backwater of academic interest?Best wishesDavid P
In 1826 the leading champion of Viennese Classical music in Italy, Peter Lichtenthal, wrote that equal temperament ‘cannot subsist’ or else the keys would lose their character and ‘one could equally [well] compose a nocturne in A minor or a military blare in A’
Your posting of the Schumann Carnaval was particularly damaging to these theorists. Here are some selected keys of the movements, compared with the characteristics of each of those keys according to Christian Schubart (1806):Preamble in A-flat, also the most prominent key of Carnaval: "Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius."Pierrot, the drunken clown, in E-flat: "The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God."Coquette, that vixen, in F: "Complaisance & Calm."Pantalon et Colombine, in f: "Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave."Promenade, in D-flat: "A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key." . . . Do you honestly feel those movements describe those characteristics? Was Schumann a bad composer, who didn't understand the fundamental characteristic of each key?
It would be a mistake to assume that the specific key characteristics described here represent any sort of genuine historical consensus; they're frankly absurd, and I'm inclined to think they reflect the solitary, fanciful and baseless opinion of the person who wrote them.
Hi!We recorded the Schumann and I posted it on YouTube, as an experiment. Nothing more nothing less.From theory and possibly resulting from the results of our experiments I think that Chopin works in Unequal Temperaments and arguably would have expected his music to be played and heard in them. But arguably perhaps Schumann not? Was there any reason why Schumann would have come across Equal Temperament more ubiquitously than Chopin?Best wishesDavid P
I listened to the Funeral March and the Carnaval, and reacted to both in different ways, and I think that will help to clarify my thoughts on the matter.I enjoyed the Funeral March very much. The "out of tune" sounding G-flat chords added a haunting, vibrato effect that cannot be easily replicated on a modern piano.The Schumann Preambule sounded unpleasant. The "out of tune" chords added little, in my opinion, to the character of the piece.And there is the rub: we are hearing this all through a poetic filter. When the distance of the harmony adds all the beats as in the Sonata, we associate it with a tragic feeling, and feel it is right. When harmonies of similar distance beat wildly in the opening of the Carnaval, it actually takes away from the grandeur of the conception, which should be a celebration of simple consonance.In other words, it is all totally subjective. There is no greater truth, in my opinion, in playing these pieces tuned to a way that might have been used two hundred years ago. It is possible that the way they tuned the pianos, was simply inadequate. We have to take that into consideration. Beethoven surely thought the actual keyboards of his time were inadequate, as did Liszt. I don't believe that everything evolves for the better, but it has to be considered.You said your teacher posed the question of why Chopin wrote in c# rather than C for some piece. But was his c# in the same place as ours? What if his c# was the same level as our C today? And on a modern piano, it would be wrong for us to play in c#?Like I posted before, a friend argues strenuously that because pitch was generally lower in the days of Beethoven, our E major in op.109 on a modern piano is actually E-flat to Beethoven. He justifies it also by saying the music sounds better, more warm and luxurious in E-flat. But I think he is wrong on the merits. If that's the case, then everything has to be played a half step lower. The c minor concerto has to be in b minor. The d minor symphony has to be in c# minor. It makes no sense whatsoever - but is purely based on his subjective reaction to the nature of the music.So my main point is that you've convinced me these tunings can add something - but not that it is necessary, or even better. In some cases, it may just purely be inadequate science of the time.I think also, that there is a psychological disconnect that figures into ideology about old tunings and things in that category. There is sometimes a feeling that we cannot truly understand the music until we discover a secret that was known to the people of the time, but hidden from us. We have to play on the old instrument, we have to play with an old tuning, realize a totally objective meaning behind all the expression markings, and then we will be priviliged to know the secret, and play the piece with truth.In a way, and I say this without rancor, I pity those with those feelings. It suggests to me that a veil exists between music they want to love with their whole heart, but cannot do so. I would suggest that this veil is not a layer of historical soot on the music that has to be cleansed in order to appreciate it, but that the veil comes from within.Walter Ramsey
C major and G-flat major should sound the same?! Wooaa. I don't get that.Besides not having perfect pitch, Argerich says she can't tell the difference between one key or another. Now you figure that one out...
Hi!There's a lot to reply to here and I hope to find the two contrasting recordings of the Funeral March in Equal and Unequal temperament.But there is something interesting going on here to the extent of the arguability that anyone can hear anything different. In demonstrating Unequal Temperament one has to use a temperament giving the maximum discomfort that one can get away with without ruining the music whilst at the same time achieving an effect at a level at which people don't think they hear a difference. It's on this cusp that the maximum subliminal effects are achieved and after the Raindrop PreludeI cannot now listen to an ordinary recording of it without screaming and tearing my hair out in boredom at being denied the colour that this piece gives in unequal temperament.Best wishesDavid P
:-)Does this Bach D minor sound the same as http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLu-d-sAOG4 in D minor too?Best wishesDavid P
The point about unequal temperament is that melodic lines take on a more interesting structure and chords shape-shift. Emotion aside, this makes the music intrinsically more interesting and equal temperament more boring and grey. In the case of the Raindrop, the tuning makes the clouds darker and the mist more obscure and the rain dropping at times onto a tin roof with a metallic twang and the glimpses of sun are more that mid mediterranean stronger sun than we see in the greyness of mor northerly climes.Happy Christmas!David P
Excuse my ignorance, because I really am ignorant when it comes to things like this. But isn't the difference due to the lower tuning of the pitch? I would say the first one is probably almost 420=A rather then the modern 440. So, of course, it sounds like it's almost in C# minor. But other then that, I don't hear any difference with the second clip (apart from the performance).Now, what I'm asking is about your statement about c major and g-flat major being the same. I truly don't understand.
Sorry I can't get off those ridiculous key descriptions, but I am amazed that people still take them seriously, then go out to listen to music they love in those keys that has nothing to do with the descriptions whatsoever.
Personally, I didn't have any eye-opening moments listening to these preludes in different temperament. I think I understand the music just as well as I do listening to it in a modern tuning. Therefore, "should" they be performed in unequal temperament? No, not necessarily. It's not inherently superior. If it was inherently, objectively superior, I believe it would be evident.
To make it simple, the strings in a piano are not able to vibrate effectively enough to produce overtones/harmonics that are precisely in tune. This is due to the stiffness and length of the strings, and therefore it is the same for an upright or grand. The smaller the piano the greater the problem, particularly in the bass since the strings are thicker and shorter.The "tenor" region of a piano (around where the treble bridge ends and the bass bridge begins) can also be a problem on smaller pianos, due to string tension issues.Here's a more technical article on wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics#Inharmonicity_and_piano_sizeJohn
I thought the point of the original post was that they rather enjoyed the wildly pulsating chords that were deliberately not "precisely in tune." Or should we ask what anyone means anymore by "precisely in tune"?
It also occured to me that in unequal temperaments, "distant" chords are only distant because the tuner starts on a white key? In other words, wouldn't we consider C major "distant" if he started tuning the whole instrument on an F#.
Also, I can see from the Hammerwood website that you don't like the idea of large pianos for chamber concerts. Whether that be a good or bad thing could be debated, but as I'm sure you know larger pianos have the wonderful advantage of being able to have less inharmonicity and a more even tone across the scale. To further your cause in promoting unequal temperaments it would be extremely helpful to the "uninitiated" if you made the videos on a larger piano. The smallest piano I've played which doesn't have silly inharmonicity in the tenor and bass is the Steinway A at 6'2"/188cm (which has a nice sounding scale design for the size), but I've played even larger pianos which suffer.Thanks for your work! I appreciate your ideals.
That's strange. I have never heard a Hallelujah intoned in this key.
The tunings often give a subliminal effect which affects both performer and more unconsciously the audience. A deeper emotional effect is experienced. If you're performing and want to make an emotional effect upon your audience, then get your tuner to tune the performance instrument to Kellner. Perhaps the audience won't notice specifically but they'll be more impressed by your interpretation.
Topic: Chopin 24 preludes - should they be performed in Unequal Temperament? 