Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.49 (921 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0375703306 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-01-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Specifically addresses the HISTORY of tuning and temperament A great book, but understand what it is before you buy it. It addresses the HISTORY of temperament and tuning, not temperament itself. Specifically, it focuses on how an understanding of tuning and temperament followed the growth of intellectual development in western civilization. The author d. A music student's positive review A. R. It's been about four years since I read this book, but I remember that it was an excellent read. I was extremely interested in the material, being ignorant of almost all of it before beginning the book, and I thought it was well-written to boot. Isacoff presented the information well-- providin. William Carpenter said A Review of Temperament for the Casual Reader. Stuart Isacoff's Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization is a good general introduction to the vexing question of how to tune a piano and other keyboard instruments. He does a good job of describing the mathematics behind the problem in a non-tec
Less forgivable is his neglect of "well-temperament." Namesake of Bach's masterful collection of 24 pieces (one each in all the major and minor keys), the well-tempered keyboard liberated composers from the howl of badly tuned keys in the way equal temperament did, while preserving the distinct quality of each key. Involving mathematics, philosophy, aesthetics, religion, politics, and physics, Stuart Isacoff 's Temperament invokes the tone of a James Burke documentary. (Perhaps he deliberately overlooked the topic since it doesn't fit well with his casting of equal temperament's opponents as rigid, dogmatic, and impractical.) Despite its flaws, Temperament is an accessible guide to a fascinating topic seldom discussed outside musical circles. Though the book may not invigorate hard-core theorists, the amateur musician, armchair scientist, history buff, or plain old curious can glean plenty from it. Yet Isacoff reserves less than two pages
Filled with original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits of some of the greatest geniuses of all time, Temperament is that rare book that will delight the novice and expert alike.. Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeks through the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenment philosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musical scale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe.In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads us through the battles over that scale, placing them in the context of quarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics and science. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system known as equal temperament called into question beliefs that had lasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Few music lovers realize that the arrangement of notes on today’s pianos was once regarded as a crime against God and nature, or that such legendary thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, da Vinci, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Rousseau played a role in the controversy