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Buxtehude temperaments

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polikimre

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Buxtehude temperaments

PostThu Feb 07, 2013 10:55 am

I've got a couple of volumes of the Keller edition of works by Buxtehude. I also have the complete Buxtehude recordings by Bine Bryndorf. I was playing a few passages of some preludes and toccatas (from Volume 2) last night and some chords sounded really funky, unlike I remeber them from the recordings. I do listen to these every day, so I know them pretty well. I tried the Velesovo set with various temperamants, but none seemed to work too well. I can think of the following possibilities:

1. Buxtehude had some funny temperament on his instrument which I cannot match.
2. The Bryndorf recordings use the right temperament (St. Jacobi among others)
3. The Velesovo set has some tuning problems (?)
4. The Keller edition has some misprints or Bryndorf uses a different edition.

In hindsight, I only tried the A=440Hz versions of the temperaments, I'll try others tonight.
I'm a bit puzzled as I haven't experience such a discrepancy with works by Bach. Any insight would be much appreciated.
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostThu Feb 07, 2013 3:22 pm

Well, some points from the top of my head.

You should know Buxtehude lived in a time where the music transitioned from a meantone temperament to a more equal temperament. You should look at the dating of the pieces (where possible). Early works work very well with a mean tone (1/5 comma) temperament, like BuxWV 137. Later works, such as BuxWV 146 in F sharp minor, require a more equal temperament.

Also you should know that already with Scheidemann the e-flat was flattened a bit more so it was also usable as a d-sharp.

You should try some temperaments with a given piece and see wath works best. Also, don't be afraid of clashes in temperament. Sometimes these are deliberate (like in the Toccata Chromatica of Sweelinck and all 'durezze' pieces) and they underline the 'affekt' of that piece.

I suggest you start with a meantone temperament, then try Hamburg-Jacobi (see other thread) and if these fail Vallotti or something similar.
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adri

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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostThu Feb 07, 2013 4:46 pm

Anyone: send me you email address and I'll email you the hamburg temperament.

I also have the Bach-Lehman one if interested.
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostFri Feb 08, 2013 12:25 am

I can also recommend the Barnes-Bach temperament (PM me if you want a copy). There are many discussions of course on the net, and many scholars fight each other.
I also like the Krzeszow temperament.

Ernst
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostThu Feb 14, 2013 7:20 pm

There's been a bit of discussion in this in scholarly circles; probably the most easily accessible source would be the relevant section of Kerala Snyder's biography, 2nd edition, wherein she explicitly withdraws her suggestion from the 1st edition that Buxtehude used Werckmeister III.

The problem is the Bux's organ in Lübeck was tuned in mean tone and didn't have split accidentals, but that some of his pieces don't work in meantone. There's another problem, though, that we have exactly *no* sources for his organ works that are anywhere close to him. Most of them are from central Germany, a generation later (including some not-too-distantly related to Bach). There's also a smattering from Scandinavia.

Some people have suggested that the sources we have may have been transposed, but that's at best a partial solution, doesn't help with all the pieces.

The person who know more about this than anyone in the world is probably Ibo Ortgies; he suggests that the "organ" pieces were just for home study, not public performances. He's been through the archives of just about every N German church and can't find any record anywhere of an identifiable written-out piece. This is actually not a surprise: a public performance by a professional would have been improvised, and Bux's written-out pieces likely had some pedagogical purpose. Organists didn't have organs at home, but pedal clavichords were pretty widespread (there's a book by Joel Speerstra that's required reading on the subject). I will testify from experience that temperament problems aren't nearly so severe on a clavichord as on an organ, even though the garden-variety c'chord in Bux's time couldn't change its temperament very readily.

The problem with Ibo's suggestion is that it's not clear why anyone would want to produce a study piece for organists that included material that couldn't be played on an organ. But this isn't a fatal objection; it depends on the nature of the "study"; also the pieces might have been for private enjoyment (as Bach stated his pieces were) rather than "study."

Another, and more disturbing, possibility is that the problematic pieces aren't entirely by Buxtehude, but were later insertions into his works. We don't know why Bux's works were copied by the central-German scribes, but there's no reason to assume that fidelity to the original was one of their concerns. They might have felt free to rewrite things, or even compose whole new sections.

Another possibility is that they weren't as bothered by funny intonation, even wolves, as we are. Meantone lasted a very long time on organs, into the middle of the 19th cent. in some places in Germany and, I think, England.

Fact is, the music historicans don't know what the answer is, so you're free to do as you like.
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostFri Feb 15, 2013 5:12 am

Thanks for the detailed answer, I was unaware of how uncertain things are. We take most everything granted for Bach and Buxtehude is not that much earlier.

Comparing the recordings and the editions I have access to I noticed quite a number of discrepancies, including entire section missing, notes changed, etc. Bach seems to be more canonized, at least to my superficial eye and ear.

Nonetheless, it is an interesting process to discover what temperament works well for a given piece. Quite "ear-opening".
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostFri Feb 15, 2013 9:18 am

gecko wrote:************** Meantone lasted a very long time on organs, into the middle of the 19th cent. in some places in Germany and, I think, England. ***************


I recall reading years ago that one of the English cathedrals was still tuned in quarter comma meantone into the late 1880's. In New England the change from quarter comma meantone to equal occurred about 1845. I take this date from an E. & G.G. Hook organ from that year where the G compass manuals had no GGG#, but the pedalboard did, indicating that they had recently moved to equal temperament and were using up inventory. Tannenburg, on the other hand, in Pennsylvania was using a temperament very close to equal in the late 18th c.

Many years ago I restored the oldest extant New England built organ (Henry Pratt opus 1, 1799). This organ was in use until 1878 still tuned in quarter comma. The organ was then in storage until I restored it in 1976 finding it still in its original temperament. The Pratt organ in the chapel at Sturbridge Village was apparently still in quarter comma until the tuning and pitch were altered in the 1960's. A side note on the Sturbridge Village organ: This organ originally had a pedalboard (a very early instance in New England).Quite possibly apocryphal, but I heard a tale that the pedalboard had been removed by early parishoners who disagreed with the organist's presumption that they were sufficiently proficient in their use to do so!

I've always contended that the reason we have almost no organ music from Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven is that the organs in Austria were still in quarter comma which certainly did not fit their harmonic aesthetic. The historic pervasiveness of quarter comma meantone seems to be little appreciated, particularly by scholars who think that there was more prevalence of alternate tunings than I believe was actually the case.
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostSat Feb 16, 2013 11:06 am

polikimre wrote:Comparing the recordings and the editions I have access to I noticed quite a number of discrepancies, including entire section missing, notes changed, etc. Bach seems to be more canonized, at least to my superficial eye and ear.


The sources for Bux differ very much from one to another; the sources for Bach (most of which stem from the composer - there are some notable exceptions) don't. To put it another way: it looks as though Bux didn't care very much about the accuracy of the sources for his organ works, although he took a lot of care with his vocal works and with the things he had printed. Bach, by contrast, did care Bux was hardly alone; Sweelinck had the same attitude. There's no reason to think that Bux's copyists cared about the accuracy of the text any more than the composer did. (In fact, there's no reason to think that Bux wrote the things down in the first place: they might be transcriptions of his improvisations done by his students; if so, we have no way to guess at how accurate they might be.)

rhedgebeth wrote:I've always contended that the reason we have almost no organ music from Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven is that the organs in Austria were still in quarter comma which certainly did not fit their harmonic aesthetic.


Whoa, that's an interesting suggestion! On the other hand: the organs did play something, and Mozart, at least, sometimes played things on them; also the organ didn't have the prominent place in worship that it did in N Germany. More important, maybe, is that you can also argue that the fixed dynamics of the organ didn't fit their musical esthetic so well; same reason that the harpsichord gradually got superceeded by the piano. I think this would be a more conventional explanation (for whatever that's worth). But the two explanaitons do supplement each other: since re-tempering an organ is a major operation, it's not going to happen unless there's a strong musical incentive.

Have to look at the barrel-organ pieces with an eye (or ear) for temperament.
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostSun Feb 17, 2013 11:05 am

I do agree with gecko's comments. I believe we do know that the Austrian church organs (at least most) were still in quarter comma. As gecko suggests, the limited use offered little incentive to "upgrade". I would offer that the barrel organs would not necessarily have followed this practice. Indeed thinking about K608 and K594 (both in f minor), I think it's pretty much impossible that the instrument that they were written for was in quarter comma. If it was, I'm glad I didn't hear it! A g# does not an ab make in quarter comma.
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostMon Feb 18, 2013 8:10 pm

Question: When did "full-sized" pedalboards start going in in Austrian organs? "Full-sized" means up to c' or, better, d'. Another way of phrasing the question: when did they regularly start performing Bach? The connection with temperament should be obvious ....
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Re: Buxtehude temperaments

PostTue Apr 02, 2013 12:01 am

Do the Bryndorf recordings say in the linear notes what the tuning is on the organ(s) used for the recording?
John

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