![[1764-84 Goermans 3-4 view]](Goermans.jpg)
![[University of Edinburgh]](EUcrest.gif)
In order to be able to assess the value of Dr. Smith's ideas and proposals, it is necessary to see and understand the musical background in England in the mid 18th Century against which it must be viewed. Whilst Thomas Young described - with a considerable degree of accuracy - Smith "Harmonics, or the Philosophy of Musical Sounds" (1748 & 1759) as "a large and obscure volume", it is true to say that the tuning background itself is equally obscure. This is, in part, on account of the remarkable dearth of actual contemporary information on the subject of keyboard tuning in general during this period: and, in even greater part, on account of the proliferation of much inaccurate information produced in the 19th and also in our own century, by those who are to-day generally regarded as being authoritative on the subject. Foremost of these are such as E.J. Hopkins "The Organ" (1855); and Alexander J. Ellis "The History of Musical Pitch" (1880): and in our own century, Alexander Wood "The Physics of Music" (1944; '64 & '75). Both Hopkins and Ellis make the fatal mistake of referring to Mean-tone as 'unequal temperament' which has probably led to more misunderstanding and confusion than any other single factor. Wood, although not mentioning unequal temperament, nevertheless does very significant damage by not doing so. He states, quite correctly, that, in the Great Exhibition of 1851, not a single English organ was tuned to Equal Temperament: but then also says that the system which preceded it was Mean-tone.
This asks us to believe that the notorious
dissonance occasioned by E
s
being used for D
s,
and Gs for As,
etc., either fell upon deaf ears: or was simply calmly accepted as a fact
of English musical life from the Middle Ages until the light of reason
finally fought its way through the fog of insular irrationality- neither
of which conclusions can seriously be regarded as even remotely credible.
But we do not need our ears to tell us this.
In 1720, Handel published his 8 Harpsichord
Suites, having taken considerable trouble to edit them since, as he explains
in the preface, "because incorrect and surreptitious copies had got abroad".
Above almost every other composer, Handel was a thoroughly practical musician
and entrepreneur, and, accordingly, is highly unlikely to have spent his
time and money upon the absurd undertaking of publishing 8 pieces, only
2 of which would have been playable upon English harpaichords had they
been tuned in Mean-tone. As if we required further proof of our labouring
under a very considerable misconception in this matter, it is pertinent
to point out that his most well known Suite, No. 5, in E major, is not
an obvious candidate for the popular nickname in which it has rejoiced
ever since with no As
available on the keyboard!
To come now to his most famous work, a
copy of which he bequeathed to the Foundling Hospital in addition to his
having already presented its chapel with an organ in 1750, no doubt with
a view to his being able to use it in the annual performances of Messiah
he gave there, here we find a score which demands the following chromatic
counterparts:
1) Cs
and B
s
2) Gs
and Fs
3) Ds
and Cs.
4) As
and Gs.
5) Es
and Ds.
6) Bs
and As.
7) Fs
and Es.
8) Cs
and Bs.
The sole counterpart he doesn't require
is F.
To add to our peculiar picture of events again, Hopkins and Ellis both carelessly, and inexcusably add to the confusion by equating the Handel organ of 1750 with the organ which replaced it eighteen years later built by "Mr. Thomas Parker, upon the new principles invented by the late Doctor Smith, containing 4 additional Notes in each Octave, at the price of £640, exclusive of the case." (Copy of the Minutes of the regular meeting held on 1st June, 1768.)
But even this provision would not have been sufficient to meet the accidental needs of the music, and in Smith's "Equal-Harmony" tuning the missing notes would be represented by those even more out of tune than in Mean-tone - as Smith himself is honest enough to admit.
Having so far done very little to clarify the situation, I will now attempt to throw a little more reasonable light on the dark distressing scene we have before us.
As early as 1511, Arnolt Schlick, the blind
German organist, in his pioneering publication on organs and organists
derided a recently-built organ which was equipped with split accidentals
on both manuals and pedals as being a ridiculous 'solution' to the tuning
problem of Mean-tone. Split keys or "Tasti spezzati" appear to have been
introduced in Italy by the 1460s, and the organ of Lucca Cathedral was
so equipped in 1480, to provide Ds
and As. Schlick
rightly regarded this as the wrong approach to the problem on account of
cost and the practicality of performance. He realised that the only sensible
way forward was not the retention of the tuning and the alteration of the
keyboard, but precisely the reverse situation, and that some modification
to the traditional Mean-tone tuning was inevitable. And although his tuning
directions are somewhat imprecise in certain respects, it is quite clear
that he was here proposing an unequal temperamen and he is apparently the
very first recorded person to have done so. In Britain, however, the first
indication, or rather, absolute proof of the practice of unequal temperament
seems to have largely lain unrecogaised as being equally important to our
proper understanding of these matters.
In 1677, Francis North - Lord Guilford - published "An Essay of Musick directed to a Friend. This work is quite obviously that of a knowledgeable and erudite musician - as opposed to the comments of his younger but far better-known brother, Roger, who also wrote on tuning, and is often quoted despite some very glaring mistakes which call his knowledge of tuning into question. After mentioning the "Schismes" which are inseparable from Mean-tone, he goes on: -
Quarter Notes have been invented, which placed in those parts where these Schismes are the greatest, make the Instrument serve those Keys to which otherwise it would not be in tune. Organ and Harpsichords that have no quarter Notes are tuned with allowances, so that there is but one perfect fifth in the compass of an Octave, the rest bear on the one hand or the other, and so are indifferently well in tune to all Keys, but exactly in tune to none."
This, for the very first time in an English source, corroborates the fact that, already well before the end of the 17th Century, unequal temperament was the accepted alternative to Mean-tone on conventional keyboards. Unlike others later, he makes no distinction between harpsichords and organs regarding this common practice. His "allowances" are obviously those of tempering some Vths flat, or narrow: and others sharp, or wide - as borne out by his invaluable remark about their bearing "on the one hand or the other". This could not possibly be a more eloquent testimony to unequal as opposed to the equal temperament of Mean-tone, and reveals the yawning gap in our general knowledge about tuning keyboard instruments in England from probably as early as the very beginning of the 17th Century right up to the general introduction of Equal Temperament on organs by the mid 1870s.
From Lord Guilford's description, I have been able to 'reconstruct' such an unequal temperament which fulfills the necessary criteria. And it is probably not mere coincidence that, in 1788 Tiberius Cavallo presents a paper to the Royal Society dealing with the "common" tuning, and giving his views upon the introduction of Equal Temperament. In this he gives the preferential order of keys as produced by the "common" tuning - they are virtually identical with those produced by this reconstructed unequal temperament as 'formulated' by Francis North.
It is this tuning you will hear in the illustrated excerpts of Handel' music that I have had recorded by Kenneth Mobbs, played on his Longman & Broderip single-manual harpsichord of 1785.
The enormous contribution that a good unequal temperament can make to the realization of the true musical concept of key and tonality, will, I hope, be obvious: equally obvious will be the full realization of this musical potential in the hands of such a musical dramatist as Handel. From this new viewpoint, it becomes pretty obvious that Dr. Smith's system of "Equal Harmony", set against this 18th Century background might have seemed both irrelevant and anachronistic.
Thomas Young, writing in 1800, had this to say:
It is to be hoped that this conference here, today, will have given all these present the unique opportunity of being able to decide whether or not they concur with this conclusion.
Home Page | List of Papers | Contents