Dear Andrew,
The problem with a lot of writing about unequal temperament on the lute
is that it's either written by many who base their conclusions almost
entirely on keyboard practice (where, of course, with individual keys
one can indeed make a deliberate choice between a chromatic or diatonic
semitone in all octaves) or those who have heard that 'meantone' gives
purer thirds and therefore by asserting this they are somehow 'better'
than those inclined to other views.
Most such writers seem blissfully unaware of the fundemental problems
that many of the Old Ones themselves squarely faced up to: that by
having a fret across the fingerboard it is not possible to set up a
lute in such a meantone (ie on some courses the fret will have to stop
a chromatic note; on another a diatonic one). In a few early pieces it
may be possible to set up a suitable meantone (say 1/6 comma, which
gives both thirds and fifths roughly the same distance from pure) but
even here one runs into problems as I pointed out in my original
reviews (in FoMRHI Quarterly) of Lindley's still unsurpassed book: eg
Luis Milan does in fact use the first fret for chromatic notes on the
4th course.
My own view is that in practice a modest degree of tempering can often
end up with more harmonious results for many pieces - in particular by
moving the second fret a bit towards the nut and the third a bit
towards the neck (both around an 1/8th commas worth) and then tempering
the open strings accordingly by following the old unison/octave tuning
checks.
However I'm often outfaced by many late 16th century Italian sources
which, for example, freely use the first fret on the first course for a
chromatic or a diatonic note! - implying either they had no sense of
tuning or something pretty close to equal temperament was routinely
employed (as Lindley concludes).
Of course there is the red herring that one can use 'tastini' (ie small
additional frets placed against certain fret/courses to allow a choice
of diatonic or chromatic). Even allowing that it's always technically
possible to employ these and that the buzzing on the paired fret is
somehow overcome, there is the problem that the SOLE source which
mentions these (Vincenzo Galilei - a celebrated thoerist as well as
practicing lutenist - in 'Fromino Dialogo' 1568,1584) speaks of the
practice in a most disparaging manner: "....Now I come to the matter
of 'tastini' which lately some people seek to introduce to remove some
of the sharpness from the thirds and major tenths (as they try to
persuade those who are more foolish than they)..... but those using
'tastini' do not know much about thoery". Unsurprisingly, no other
contemporary lutenists make any reference to such affectations.
David van Ooijen has probably made the best stab at simple instructions
on how to set up a lute for various meantone temperaments (see his
site) but even he is obliged to fudge the outcome by assuming
particular diatonic or chromatic settings for certain frets which wont
work in many pieces/keys (eg for a nominal G lute the third fret 4th
course is given in its G# position whereas its much commoner use is at
Ab, etc....). You'll have to analyse Kapsberger's diatonic/chromatic
usage at each fret position to be able to estimate what temperament he
employed - when I did it I found equal temparament was generally
indicated..........
MH
PS This topic generally has been the subject of repeated threads on
this list - Andrew, you may care to trawl the substantial archives.
--- On Sun, 9/1/11, David van Ooijen <[email protected]> wrote:
From: David van Ooijen <[email protected]>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Kapsperger's temperament
To: "Lute Net" <[email protected]>
Date: Sunday, 9 January, 2011, 13:45
On 9 January 2011 14:32, Stewart McCoy <[1][email protected]> wrote:
> I've been reading Ross Duffin's recent book and he has a rather
> different opinion.
I suppose you are referring to 'How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony
(and Why You Should Care). [Norton, 2007]
It's a lousily written good read. Duffin has some axes to grind, which
tends to cloud his arguments, and he tends to popularise his style
rather very much. A pity, because the point he is making is valid and
he certainly knows his subject.
He has various on-lines articles on the same subject available,
perhaps a good start would be:
"Why I hate Vallotti (or is it Young?)"
[2]http://music.case.edu/~rwd/Vallotti/default.html
David
--
*******************************
David van Ooijen
[3][email protected]
www.davidvanooijen.nl
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References
1. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
2. http://music.case.edu/~rwd/Vallotti/default.html
3. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
