Hi, all.. I have been having fun reading Prof Duffin's "How ET Ruined Harmony" and wanted to ask about Baroque tunings wrt lutes, theorbos, et al.
According to Prof D, most late Baroque (post 1650) and Classical tuning was done using the scheme written out by one Pier Francesco Tosi. In this scheme he divides a tone into nine parts (commas) with an octave consists of 55 commas. He thus differentiates between a "major semitone" (diatonic) at 5 commas and a "minor semitone" (chromatic) at 4 commas. In terms of our modern cents, the major semitone is around 109.1 cents and the minor at 87.3, for a noticeable difference of almost 22 cents. From my reading, it seems that most continuo players tune to MT, whereas this tuning is closer to a "modified 6th-comma". Is this the case? Or does it vary based on circumstance? For example, if playing in an orchestra with harpsichord, then one tunes to the harpsichord temperament. If one is solo with a singer, then one is free as to temperament. Any thoughts? -- Best regards .. mark. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
