Hi everyone,

Here's a quick question on tuning: who is generally regarded or accepted as the inventor of equal temperament (not the 'equal' or well temperament of Bach's time)?

Someone suggested Cristofori, which for reasons in my other research, I don't believe to be true.

Thanks

I take it you mean 12 tone even temperament - because there are other systems that divide the octave into smaller divisions than semitones. It is generally credited to Vincenzo Galilei, the father of Galileo, but was probably invented even earlier in China.

There is a very good Wikipedia article about it here

Cristofori is credited with inventing the piano. He had the critical idea of hitting the strings with a hammer that rebounds from the string (rather than staying in contact as in the clavichord) and rather than plucking it (as in the Harpsichord) but the mechanism he designed was very simple and primitive compared to what it eventually evolved into.

The 'Well' temperament of Bach's 48 preludes & fugues was (and is) most definitely not the same as 'equal' temperament and this description in your post suggests confusion on the subject. Even since I joined the forums (about 18 months ago) there have been many lengthy, erudite and informative threads on this very topic, and the wealth of information available via Google (for example) is enormous. I believe there is a named person to whom we can ascribe 'Well' temperament ('though I could be wrong). I'm not sure the same can be said of 'equal' temperament.

Werckmeister?

Kenm is the best qualified person on these boards to answer questions on temperament - it was he who suggested the book 'How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony: And Why We Should Care' by Ross Duffin to me - it's an interesting read, and not too technical. Although I don't agree with one of Duffin's conclusions, I do strongly agree with the main argument of the title.

Werkmeister certainly developed 'well temperament', though I don't think he can in any way be called the 'inventor' of well temperament - merely one of the more famously documented ones. His 'Werkmeister III' is a very usable quarter-comma meantone temperament, which works very well in Bach, and along with Valotti, has been one of the more commonly used 'well temperaments' in recent times. It's fairly straightforward to tune harpsichords to this temperament too, if you have a sensitive ear.

EDIT:
Although it's been subject to some disagreement, there's an interesting exposition on 'Bach's temperament' here:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/index.html

A very interesting argument Brian. I've certainly sang against instruments tuned to Werkmeister III, and it gives Baroque music real character. Some of the intervals became much more intuitive than they were when all the semitones had been flattened out to be equal.

It is also interesting that even when equal temperament became normal, there was a hangover effect from the Doctrine of Affections that Bach was trying to Smash by composing the 48 in the first place.