On Sep 25, 2009, at 6:42 PM, wikla wrote:
The F-major - to me - is very soft, happy and royal, and btw. also
green to
me; the E-major is much more sharp and angry, and btw. to me its
colour is
blue. And what is most intersting to me, is that in the so called
"baroque"
tuning (a'=415Hz) and in the modern tuning (a'=440Hz) those
characteristics
follow the name of the key? Or better said, players tune their
instruments
so...
Is it so?
If modern pianos are tuned to something approximating ET at 440, then
the so-called "sombre key" of C sharp minor is not going to sound as
sombre as it did in Beethoven's time... ;-)
And an entertaining poll: What is the colour of your F-major and E-
major?
Those two are clearest to me: to me there are no other alternatives to
these two. D-major perhaps could be yellow? A-minor grey possible?
C-major
white? Well, that's enough...
What about the old argument concerning Bach cantatas: instruments
manufactured in both 392 and 415, and organ at 465, would have
necessitated transpositions of as much as a minor third. Where does
the color-coding idea fit into that scheme? You don't get a
combination of colors; you get everybody playing out of tune. Bach
apparently favored the idea that everybody should tune to the organ.
So in a sense he was going for an artificial pitch standard. And
what about the surviving wind instruments from that period: were
they tuned to a particular temperament?
Best,
DavidR
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