With the revival of unequal temperament for organs and harpsichords, this leaves the piano as the only keyboard instrument where equal temperament is the standard tuning. However, some piano tuners have adopted Young or Vallotti as an alternative, or indeed as their standard tuning. In an age when informed choice has become the generally accepted practice, I find it rather strange that more piano tuners do not offer alternative tunings to piano owners. Many typical upright pianos are played by people that rarely venture beyond three accidentals, which of course is where the “well tempered” systems demonstrate a considerable advantage. Generally, they are considerably better in tune up to three accidentals than equal temperament. Beyond this, the intonation becomes brighter and slightly harsher as the 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths become sharper. Usually, the keys with the greatest number of accidentals have the widest 3rds. Many well-tempered systems have at least one Pythagorean 3rd that is 21.5 cents sharp; this has since the 18th century generally been considered as the limit of acceptability to the human ear. Wider 3rds can be used, but only as passing chords. The strongly coloured keys containing the wider 3rds are perfectly usable, as are the minor keys with flat minor 3rds, and provide an interesting, and expressive contrast. This is something that an equally tuned piano can never achieve.
The excuses given for not tuning pianos to anything other than equal temperament are: It is technically not possible; other temperaments are too difficult to tune accurately; other instruments will sound out of tune with a "well tempered" piano; people are accustomed to the out of tune intervals of equal temperament.
As far as the technical excuse is concerned, it is true to say that pianos will not take too kindly to being tuned to the more extreme mean tone tunings, as this can de-stabilise the strings. Inevitably, the very flat intervals result in slack strings and the sharp intervals will produce very taut strings. However, the well-tempered tunings do not cause any problems. Far from being more difficult to tune, well-tempered tunings are in fact much easier to tune, because there are several pure 5ths as well as other pure intervals, by which a check on the tuning can be made. For instance,Kirnberger III only has five tempered 5ths, seven pure 5ths and a pure C-E third. For those that prefer to tune using electronic pitchers, most of these now have pre-programmed temperaments, including: Young, Vallotti, Kirnberger III, Bach, and Werckmeister III. Few instruments such as recorders (at best quasi equal), guitars which are 19 or 31 notes to the octave equal, brass instruments and bowed instruments such as violins coincide exactly with the piano. In fact, with most blown and bowed instruments, pitch is not absolute or fixed, in the way that a piano or harpsichord is. The fact that people are used to equally tuned pianos does not constitute an excuse for not giving them the opportunity to hear something better, more expressive and more interesting. The general rule appears to be with music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries: played on a harpsichord or clavichord, the tuning is unequal, but played on the piano, the tuning is almost always equal regardless of the era in which the music was composed or the intended tuning. Why most performers, and tuners hang on to this rather illogical practice seems as yet to be unexplained! Well tempered tuning has been widely accepted by harpsichord and organ tuners; why then do many piano tuners still find the concept of well tempered tuning so objectionable? Is it perhaps for misconceived historical reasons? Or is it a concern that learning different beat rates for different systems will cause confusion?
There is the argument that it is historically incorrect to tune a modern concert grand to a well-tempered tuning. This can be discounted by the fact that pianos were being tuned to well-tempered tunings until the turn of the 20th century. In any case, it is all very well for the equal tempered lobby to make such claims, but this overlooks the music played on equally tempered pianos that was written for well-tempered or mean tone tunings, which is certainly historically incorrect. One further objection to tuning well-tempered pianos, is that any piece of western music can be performed satisfactorily in equal temperament. This is at least to some extent true. However, this opinion is used to back a claim that if a piano (or any other keyboard instrument) is tuned in a specific temperament, and music is played upon the instrument, that was intended for another tuning, then the intended expression of the music will inevitably be to some extent altered. This of course is also true. Unfortunately, those that support this notion are clearly overlooking the fact that the same objections apply to equal temperament. In fact, in the "good keys" of the various well-tempered tuning systems, there is in most cases less difference in the intonation between the various tunings, to that of equal temperament, which as we know contains no "good keys".
There was, and to some extent still is, a level of ignorance regarding unequal temperament, and the fact that there are such temperaments in which all 24 keys are perfectly usable. They give better results, character and key flavour than equal temperament, which is of course devoid of key character and flavour, the intonation in all keys being the same. Added to which, apart from the octaves, not a single note is in tune with true just values. Many musicians did not realise this; myth’s and prejudice have played their part, and even today, some musicians are only aware of two temperaments: just intonation and equal temperament. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a lot of misleading information on temperaments was published, which gave rise to the belief that equal temperament was advocated by various theorists, when such was not the case. In addition, the term “equal temperament” was often used to describe well tempered tuning systems. For instance, published in 1752, the second volume of Matheson’s “Critica Musica” cites both Andreas Werckmeister and J.G. Neidhardt as having invented equal temperament. It is also claimed that in Werckmeister’s “Orgelprobe” (2nd edition, 1698), he recommends “equal temperament”. Helmholtz’s “Sensations Of Tone” published in the 1870’s, also claims that Werckmeister advocated equal temperament in 1691; this was in fact the year in which he published his own temperament! Similarly, Neidhardt was using his own unequal temperament. There is also the erroneous connection with Bach. One of the more amusing claims in favour of equal temperament is that J.P. Kirnberger tried to persuade musicians to adopt it, when in fact his tuning systems, which were published near the end of his life are very different from equal temperament, favour the popular keys, and contain at least one pure major 3rd. Thus, the misuse, and misquotation of terms and advocacy, probably gave equal temperament a status it may never have otherwise attained.
In recent years, there has happily been a gradual enlightening of the advantages of unrestricted unequal temperament, and many organs have been tuned to circulating tunings, as well as mean tone and modified mean tone tunings. In Germany, the return to unequal temperament began in the 1950’s, and many organs in both Holland and Germany are now tuned unequally. The trend is now well established in much of Europe, including Britain, and also in the United States. Werckmeister III, Vallotti, Neidhardt, and Kirnberger III being amongst the more popular temperaments. Interestingly, equal temperament is never used for tuning harpsichords except for modern music written for the instrument.
Johan Phillipe Kirnberger (1721-1783)
Kirnberger III
Bach and “ Das Wohltemperirte Clavier”
During the 20th century, a number of books were published, in
which it was claimed that when Bach wrote his 48 preludes and fugues for the
“Well Tempered Clavier”, that he intended this for equal temperament, although
research in the last 20 years has disproved this erroneous belief. Some
publications went as far as to claim that Bach invented equal temperament! There was an assumption by some musicians in the
20th century that Bach introduced equal temperament for the "Well Tempered Clavier" in 1722, and that since then,
equal temperament has been the standard tuning across the western world since.
Contemporary documents and the manner,
in which keyboard instruments were tuned, show that equal temperament was
neither properly understood, could not be tuned accurately, and furthermore, was
considered as a very poor answer to obtaining 24-key availability. Already in
use in Germany in Bach’s time, was a term for equal temperament, or what was
generally thought to reflect the manner of tuning this system: Gleichschwebende
temperatur (equal beating temperament); it was considered that equal temperament
was obtained by tuning all twelve 5ths flat to beat equally. This of course will
produce an unequal system, which is similar to, but not identical to equal temperament.
Bach did not use this term within the title. When Bach wrote book I of the Well Tempered Clavier,
he was almost certainly using Werckmeister III as his keyboard tuning. Why Werckmeister III? Andreas Werckmeister was known by Bach,
and Bach would have known about Werckmeister's temperaments and very likely read Werckmeister's book: "Das Orgelprobe". It must also be
noted that there were very few "well-tempered" systems available in 1722. It is possible that Bach had already developed his
own tuning system; this tuning is shown diagrammatically on Bach's signet ring, which has 5 rubies (tempered 5ths) and 7 pearls (pure 5ths). One analogy of the preludes and fugues (by Barnes)
indicates that the better in tune major 3rds in Werckmeister III are encountered more frequently than those which are less well in tune.
It is also interesting to note that Bach’s tuning is not dissimilar to
Werckmeister III.
Some members of the lobby that believed Bach used equal temperament, shot this notion in the proverbial foot by claiming that Bach could not have used the tuning system as proposed by professor Anton kellner (the tuning shown on Bach's signet ring), because this has an equal beating C-E-G triad and specific beat rates were not in use during the 18th century. Equal temperament can only be tuned by specific beat speeds, because there are no pure intervals with which to check the tuning. In fact, apart from the octaves, every reference interval used for tuning has a specific beat rate. 18th century tuning almost certainly made use of pure intervals (zero beating), equal beating intervals (as in the two wide 5ths in Rameau's tuning), and "relative" beat speeds, for example tuning one interval to beat say half the speed of another.
Werckmeister III
Bach had been living at a time when mean tone tuning dominated Europe. There was stiff opposition to the new “well tempered” tuning systems being adopted, particularly by the church. To The concept of meddling with pure intervals, in the popular keys in order to render usable, keys such as C#, F#, and Ab, which would hardly ever be used seemed nothing less than sacrilegious. The fact that most well tempered tunings contain some pure intervals did assist in making them acceptable to the musical listener. At this period, equal temperament, which is a wholly mathematically devised temperament, and contains no pure intervals, was considered as an affront to nature and God. The Catholic Church believed it to be an invention of the devil himself!
Bach paid careful attention to the harmonies in the less used keys, with more accidentals; these are less well intonated in unequal temperament. The simple test which proves conclusively that Bach intended that the “Well Tempered Clavier” to be played in a well tempered tuning and not equal temperament, is simply to play the prelude and fugue in C major from book I, in C#, and the C# prelude and fugue in C. The C major sounds rather harsh with it’s frequently encountered major 3rds; the C# played in C sounds rather pointless. The music soars dazzlingly up and down the scale, avoiding those major 3rds, but quite unnecessarily.
Music written by Bach, J.G. Walther, Vivaldi, Buxtehude and Muffat generally avoids the bad keys in the mean tone temperaments, but there are exceptions where bad keys, even those with wolf 5ths were exploited for effect. If one listens to a Scarlatti sonata on a harpsichord tuned to unequal temperament, and then listens to the same sonata played on a similar instrument tuned to equal temperament, the difference is most pronounced: in equal temperament, both the instrument, and in consequence the music, lose much of their expression and character. The general effect is bland and oily. In unequal temperament, the instrument and music come to life; the music is colourful and exciting. Again, Scarlatti (like Bach and others) wrote music, which exploited unequal intervals to enhance the effect and expression.
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