Observations on the harpsichord tuning practice then and now
Journal Title: Notes Muzyczny - Year 2015, Vol 1, Issue 3
Abstract
A problem overlooked so far in the research, despite the enormous interest in the historical temperament systems, is the practical aspects of harpsichord tuning in the past and now. The article is an attempt to look at the instrument maintenance in the past from a wider perspective and to signal possible areas from the history of instruments which were not paid a lot of attention to before. The first part of the text is focused on the historical and personal aspect of the harpsichord tuning practice. The author is trying to answer the question who was responsible for tuning these instruments over the 17th and 18th centuries. He presents an outline of royal and princely courts where tuners were employed, together with the descriptions which he found, specifying their status and scope of duties and privileges. Then he includes the extant texts allowing to figure out how socially highly esteemed tuners were by minor aristocracy and burgesses. For that the author refers to the sources directly or indirectly describing the daily work and examples from the life of people connected with instrument tuning, e.g. the treatise by Jean Denis, diary by Jacoba van Thiel, lecture by Daines Barrington on birdsong, satirical book by James Beresford or invention description by Francis Hopkinson. Mocek also mentions the controversies connected with a temperament system used; in this context he quotes the sources about Girolamo Frescobaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach. The second part is based on the 18th century English sources and it briefly presents the way the size of intervals was described with words. The conclusion of the article is an attempt to specify the problems tuners have to face nowadays, especially in the era when electronic application programmes are commonly used. The article is enclosed with two charts allowing to tune the instrument by comparing the beat in tempered intervals with metronome readings.<br/><br/>
Authors and Affiliations
Aleksander Mocek
Keywords
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