On 17.01.2007 dc wrote:
Johannes Gebauer écrit:
I do wonder what kind of intonation your friend used. In my opinion this is
actually the biggest difference between a modern and a good period instrument
performance.
What do you mean exactly by intonation? Temperament? How good the thirds are?
It's not really accurate to speak of temperament for violin playing.
Temperament only works if the notes are always the same, which they
never are.
Too pure a third in Bach actually sounds very odd (a little vulgar) to
my ears, and that would also require some very odd melodic intervals.
However, I strongly believe that violinists should know a lot _about_
temperaments. Only then will they understand to adjust their intonation
to get "good" thirds, _and_ good melodic intervals. It's a very complex
issue, and not many violinists are quite aware of the complexity.
For instance: In an orchestra someone was tuning his fifth to a machine.
Someone else asked which temperament he was using, which was equal. The
reaction by at least three other violinists was "No, you can't use equal
tempered fifth for early music." So instead he tuned pure fifths. Now
think: Any historical temperament I know of tunes the relevant fifths
(g-d-a-e) even narrower than equal temperament. Only Werckmeister leaves
one of them pure. Most are a sixth/fifth or even fourth comma narrow.
Equal temperament is a twelveth narrow. So what is closer to a
historical temperament, pure or ET? Throw that question at baroque
violinists, and you will probably find more of them replying "pure".
Whether one tunes the strings pure or tempered is yet another question.
In many cases, I'd say the biggest difference is the quantity of vibrato.
No, I don't think so. Although vibrato is often used to cover the bad
tuning. The two usually appear together.
Johannes
--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de
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