Article contents
Fifteenth-Century Evidence for Meantone Temperament
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1975
Extract
In the year 1496 Franchino Gafurio referred to the use of tempered fifths on the organ, but he did not specify the amount of the tempering, and Murray Barbour has concluded that ‘we have no way of knowing what temperament was like’ at that time. I believe, however, that a careful analysis of contemporary theoretical writings, and particularly of the information given by Ramos de Pareja in his Musica Practica of 1482, will show that the kind of tuning in question was almost certainly some form of regular meantone temperament, that is, with the fifths tempered rather more than in equal temperament for the sake of more resonant thirds and sixths.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1979 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors
References
1 Franchino Gafurio, Practιca Musιce (Milan, 1496), book iii, chapter 3, rule 2; Eng tr, Clement A Miller (American Institute of Musicology, 1968), 125, Eng tr, Irwin Young (Madison, 1969), 133Google Scholar
2 James Murray Barbour, Tuning and Temperament, a Historical Survey (second edition, East Lansing, 1953), 5.Google Scholar
3 Bartolomé Ramos, Musica practica (Bologna, 1482), 4 5; ed. Johannes Wolf (Leipzig, 1901), 4 5 his passage is translated in Oliver Strunk, Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), 201 2.Google Scholar
4 Ramos, op. cit., 80; ed. Wolf, 99; translation in Strunk, op cit., 204 The system of intonation which we commonly refer to as ‘Pythagorean’ Rames more specifically associates with Boethius.Google Scholar
5 Ramos, op. cit., 27 31; ed. Wolf, 34 40.Google Scholar
6 John Hothby, La Calliopea legale, in Edmond de Coussemaker, Histore de l'Harmonte au Moyen-. Ige (Paris, 1982), 297 349, and Anton Wilhelm Schmidt, Die Calliopea legale des John Hothby (Leipzig, 1897), see Riemann, Hugo, History of Musιe Theory, tr. R H Haggh (Loincoln, Nebraska, 1962), 260 62.Google Scholar
7 The discrepancy between this and a pure fifth is tailed a schisma and amounts theoretically to 1 95 cents. In equal temperament each fifth is tempered by 1/12 of the Pythagorean comma, which consists of 12 008 schismasGoogle Scholar
8 Ramos, op cit., 80 81; ed Wolf, 99 100Google Scholar
9 Ibid.Google Scholar
10 Arnolt Schlick, Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Orgamsten (Speyer, 1511), ff 16v 17r, ed Robert Eitner in Monatshefte fur Musikgeschichte. i (1869), 103 4 See Lindley, Mark, ‘Early 16th-Century Keyboard Temperaments’, Musica Disciplina, \\\in (1974). 134, 137 8Google Scholar
11 Prosdocimo de Beldomandi, Parvus tractatulus de modo monochordum dividendt (Padua, 1413), in Edmond de Coussemaker, Sinptorum dr Musica Medu Arm, ili (Paris, 1869), 248 58 For further discussion of Prosdocimo and Ugolino of Orvieto in this regard, see Lindley, Mark, ‘Pythagorean Intonation and the Rise of the Triad’, Research Chronicle (forthcoming).Google Scholar
12 Hugo Spechtshart de Reutlingen, Flores musicae omnis cantus Gregoriam (Strasbourg, 1488) The Ab monochord which appears in chapter 2 of this publication is not by Hugo Spechtshart, who died in 1359 or 1360, but by an anonymous commentator. Hugo's chromatic monochord, described in the 1343 version of his treatise, had no semitone between C and A See Karl-Werner Gumpel, Hugo Spechtshart von Reutlingen, Flores Musicae (1332/42) (Wiesbaden, 1958), 65 72Google Scholar
13 See above, p 39.Google Scholar
14 Gιovannι Spataro, Erion de Franchino Gafw da Lodi (Bologna, 1521), ff 21v 22rGoogle Scholar
15 Franchino Gafurio, Apologιa Aranihinu Gafuru Musict aduervus Ioannem Spatarum & complues musicos Bonemenses (Turin, 1520), last page but seven. Cafurio attributes this statement to Spataro and then concedes its validityGoogle Scholar
16 Franchino Cafurio, De Harmonia Musicorum Instrumentorum (Milan. 1518), f 64r; see Young, Irwin, Franchimus Gafurius, Renaissance Theorist and Composer (1451–1522) (unpublished dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1954), 130.Google Scholar
17 Gafurio, Practica Musice, book ni, chapter 3, rule 2Google Scholar
18 Gafurio, De Harmonia Musicorum Instrumentorum, f. 68v, see Young, op. cit., 352–3.Google Scholar
19 Gafurio, Theorica Musice (Milan, 1492), book v, chapter 5Google Scholar
20 Cafurio, Dr Harmonia Musicorum Instrumentorum, f. 18v The ancillary diagrams referred 10 in this paragraph (on ff 60v and 82r) had already appeared in Gafurio's Angelicum ac divinum opus musice (Milan. 1508)Google Scholar
21 Thomas Morley, A Plaune and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musike (London, 1597), second page of the annotations.Google Scholar
22 Pietro Aaron, Lmudano, in Musica (Venice, 1545), f. 36v and Thoscanello in Musica (Venice, 1523), chap 41. See Bergquest, EdPeter, junior. The Theoretical Writings of Pietra Aaron unpublished dissertation, Columbia University, 1964), 112 13, and Lindley, ‘Early 16th-Century Keyboard Temperaments’, 144–50.Google Scholar
23 Giovanni Maria Lanfranco, Seintille di Musica (Brescia, 1533), 97 101, 125ff, see Lindley, op cit (n 10), 144 50Google Scholar
24 Gioseffo Zarhno, Sopplimenti Musuali (Venice, 1588), 157.Google Scholar
25 Ramos, op cit, 82; ed. Wolf, 101 2Google Scholar
26 See Edwin M Ripin, ‘The Early Clavichord’, Mutual Quarterly, liii (1967), 518 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27 Ramos, loc cit.Google Scholar
28 See Dupont, Wilhelm, Geschichte der musikalischen Temperatur (Kassel, 1935), 48 51; John Barnes, ‘The Specious Uniformity of Italian Harpsichords’, in Edwin M. Ripin, Kryboard Instrum Studies in Keyboard Organology (Edinburgh, 1971), 1 2.Google Scholar
29 See Nerici, Luigi, Storia della Musica in Lucca (Lucca, 1879), 141 3Google Scholar
30 See Lindley, ‘Pythagorean Intonation and the Rise of the Triad’Google Scholar
31 Gioseffo Zarlino, Dimostration armauiche (Venice, 1571), 263 9Google Scholar
32 See Lindley, ‘Pythagorean Intonation and the Rise of the Triad’Google Scholar
33 Ibid.Google Scholar
34 Zarlino, Istitutiom harmoniche (Venice, 1558), 146 65.Google Scholar
35 See above, n 15.Google Scholar
36 See Lindley, ‘Early 16th-Ccntury Keyboard Temperaments’Google Scholar
37 Willi Apel, The History of Keyboard Music to 1700, tr and rev. Hans Tischler (Bloomington, 1972), 69–70 These clausulae appear in the ‘Fundamentum M C P.C.’, no 190 in the Buxheim Organ Book. No 236 is entitled ‘Magistn Paumann Contrapuncti’ Presumably the initials in the first title stand for 'Magistn Conrad Paumann ContrapunctiGoogle Scholar
38 Shohe Tanaka, ‘Studien im Gebiete der reinen Stimmung’, Vierteljahrwchrift fur Musikussenschaft, vi (1890), 61 2.Google Scholar
39 Friedrich Wilhelm Arnold, ‘Das Lochheimer Liederbuch nebst der Ars Organisandi von Conrad Paumann’, in Friedrich Chrysander, Jahrbucher fur musikalischr Wissenschaft (Leipzig, 1867), 182 224 For a recent edition of this music see Apel, Willi, ed., Keyboard Music of the Fourteenth & Fifteenth Centuries (American Institute of Musicology 1963), 32 51Google Scholar
40 See Krautwurst, Franz, 'Paumann, Die Musik in Geschuhte und Gegcuuart, (Kassel, 1962), cols. 968 71Google Scholar
41 See Lindley, 'Pythagorean Intonation and the Rise of the TriadGoogle Scholar
42 Ramos, op cit, 82, ed Wolf, 102Google Scholar
43 The exact dating of the various parts of the Buxheim repertory is uncertain; for a survey of opinions, see Robert S Lord, The Buxheim Organ Book A Study in the History of Organ Music in Southern Germany during the Fifteenth Century (unpublished dissertation, Yale University, 1960), 160–64.Google Scholar
44 Arnolt Schlick, Tabulaturen etluher lobgevang und liedhim uff die orgeln vn lauten (Maiuz, 1542), and Spiegel der Orgelmacher un[d] Organisten (Speyer, 1511, reprinted Mainz, 1959), chapter 8, ed. Robert Eitner, Monatshefte fur Musikgeschichte, i (1869). See Husmann, Heinrich, ‘Zur Characteristik der Schlicksen Temperatur’, Arha fui Musikuissenschaft, xxiv (1967), 253 65, and Lindley, ‘Early 16th-Century Keyboard Temperaments’Google Scholar
- 4
- Cited by