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<font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">Eric,<br>
<br>
The question seems to me somewhat difficult to answer because, if you
are speaking of early music, it is almost impossible to determine
whether any music was MEANT for quarter-comma (or any other specific
brand of) meantone. The case of Ligeti's piece mentioned by </font></font>Kris
Shaffer is entirely different because Ligeti's concern with tuning
probably was utterly different. Late 19th-century British (and other)
organs may still have been tuned in meantone, and probably played a lot
of augmented sixths...<br>
<br>
Any meantone tuning (except equal temperament, twelfth-comma meantone)
is limited in extension by the number of pitch classes available. A
keyboard with twelve keys in the octave would extend from Eb to G#
(with only two possible augmented 6ths between Bb and G# and between Eb
and C#), or possibly from Ab to C# (in which case Bb-G# would be
replaced by Ab-F#) – this remains true also for other, non-keyboard
instruments of fixed pitches tuned in meantone, mainly the harp.
Instruments with more than twelve pitch classes in the octave (e.g.
enharmonic keyboards, usually with split keys) offer more possibilities.<br>
<br>
A first answer to your question, therefore, is that instruments in
meantone tuning (quarter-comma or other) do offer (limited)
possibilites for playing augmented sixths. And 16th-century enharmonic
keyboards (e.g. Vicentino's Archicembalo) may have offered extended
possibilities. Vicentino's own microtonal compositions may include
cases that answer your question, but they are a triffle difficult to
decode – and these compositions, in any case, are for voices, not for
keyboard, if I remember correctly..<br>
<br>
Your question then boils down to (1) whether augmented sixths may have
been written at all in ordinary music (vocal or instrumental) before,
say, the late 17th century. and (2) whether, once allowed, augmented
sixths were still played on instruments tuned in meantone.<br>
I'd suggest the following answers:<br>
(1) No, probably not as long as intonation theory did not allow
enharmonic equivalents;<br>
(2) Yes, certainly, as long as instruments were – and are still today –
tuned in meantone.<br>
<br>
To say all this in other words: I believe that the problem of spelling
an augmented sixth in musical notation was by far more important than
playing it in any specified tuning.<br>
<br>
Yours,<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université de Paris Sorbonne<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plm.paris-sorbonne.fr">http://www.plm.paris-sorbonne.fr</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr">nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="-1"><font face="Georgia"><br>
<br>
</font></font><br>
Eric Knechtges a écrit :
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTinh4AAd3hmPUYZwL9O_rpB3+a_ft2uDrbbvu7xg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Hello all,<br>
<br>
Does anyone have an example of an augmented sixth chord in a piece
of music that would likely have been performed on a keyboard tuned in
quarter-comma meantone?<br>
<br>
Eric Knechtges, DM<br>
Assistant Professor, Coordinator of Theory/Composition<br>
Northern Kentucky University<br>
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