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Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization, by Stuart Isacoff

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Review

“Isacoff . . . untangles the complexities . . . with the aplomb of a virtuoso pianist playing scales.” —The New York Times Book Review“A thrilling story that is as accessible as it is absorbing. . . . This is a whirlwind tour through the history of Western culture, told with flair and grace.” —National Review“Immensely entertaining, original and informative. [Temperament’s] most persuasive weapon is the unquenchable passion of its author.” —The Economist “Admirable. . . . [Isacoff] writes engagingly. . . . [about] a time when there existed a glorious synthesis of music and mathematics, and in the imaginations of scientists and philosophers and musicians it wove the entire universe into a grand design." —The New Republic“Charming. . . . As much a whirlwind tour of Western culture’s big ideas as it is a musicological investigation.” —Los Angeles Times“The pleasure here is that it gives readers a glimpse of the oceanic depths of musical metaphors and mysteries still unsolved by cognitive science and evolutionary psychology.” —Wilson Quarterly“A sweeping history of medieval and Renaissance European intellectual achievement, in which the question of tuning assumes a speaking part. . . . Temperament should appeal not only to music lovers but also to fans of cultural and scientific history.” —Time Out New York“An astounding and accessible journey through the culture-defining narrative hidden in arcane music theory. Isacoff does a wondrous job.” —The Onion“This lucid, humanist study is as much fun to read as a murder mystery.” —San Jose Mercury News“[Brings] together aspects of science, philosophy, history, poetry, religion, and music in a compact yet compelling narrative.” —Library Journal

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From the Inside Flap

vers 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. 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. Filled with original insights, fascin

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Product details

Paperback: 288 pages

Publisher: Vintage (February 4, 2003)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0375703306

ISBN-13: 978-0375703300

Product Dimensions:

5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.1 out of 5 stars

70 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#97,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

The centuries-old struggle between perfection in sonic concord and pragmatism in its application to the keyboard and its insistence on a 12-step octave, musical sounds perfect and elemental, the laws of physics tamed and tethered to the expedient of chromaticism, Temperament illustrates all aspects of history and philosophy as all contemporary forces and minds were passionate on this very subject. There are historical and philosophical revelations on every page, and who knew that the first tempered chromatic scale predated keyboards altogether? In China, a set of bamboo pipes, 12 to commemorate and ritualize the monthly chapters of the year.And the battle rages on: there's a pretty substantial Afterword taking up the ongoing controversies and innovations in micro-tonal music.An inspired and inspiring book.

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-technical manner.However perhaps the best parts of the book are where he describes how the questions of musical tunings become part of the history of western civilization. People really cared about this and what it said about the relationship of man to god and how the universe worked. Euclid, Newton, Alchemy, Copernicus, Galileo and other heavyweights of intellectual history all participated in the struggle to devise the perfect tuning system.Entertaining and accessible. If you've wondered about the differences between just tuning, equal tuning, and well tuning, this book is for you.

Loved the history and felt as though the men through history were contemporaries, although they spanned the centuries with their questions on developing temperament. The book was a gold mine of interesting information on the links between science, music, art, and math (and the "string theory" of modern scientific thought). If I was still teaching school, it would be a core book for the development of my lessons in any of the subjects above, to bring alive my classes. I was excited to talk about it to my friends today.When I listen to music, I appreciate music that tells a story and paints a picture as when listening to "The Warsaw Concerto"[ASIN:B0000060DC Warsaw Concerto]] I also love music that is really special, as is the arrangement of La Mer, which accompanied the end of the movie in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier,Spy".[ASIN:B0059XTTW8 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy]] I am a lay person who sympathizes with the thoughts that Mr Isacoff expresses in,The Afterword, of this book. It is impossible to satisfy everyone. Is it really possible to reach what we think of as perfection, or is perfection different to each of us? Just as I suspect perception might be different to each of us.Madlyn Fafardauthor

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 does not explain the details of historic temperaments and tuning. If your interest is about historic temperaments themselves, you will be disappointed.The authors writing style is good. He writes in a story telling fashion, has a sense of plot and a number of points of climax, which really helps to keep the readers interest. There is no prerequisite knowledge needed, so the general reader should be able to follow this book. However, there are a lot of characters and I got them confused sometimes. It helps to jot a few notes about each character as they are introduced.

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-- providing diagrams and pictures where necessary for understanding certain things, such as the mathematical basis for fifths and octaves. He also included a great deal of history surrounding the main argument (the main point of which was whether to retain the perfect fifth or sacrifice it for the perfect octave) and so he therefore included aspects of religion, politics, and science which were contemporary at the time. The book is also replete with amusing historical anecdotes, making it quite an entertaining read, rather being dry material.For one specific example, Isacoff discusses how music was taught in earlier medieval times with no written music at all-- thus there was a strong need for a verbal scale to teach new choir members how to sing in harmony. To this purpose, a specific verse in Latin became a main teaching standard, with the next note in the scale at the beginning of each verse. Eventually they sung just the words as a shortened version, and then abbreviated those words. Those abbreviations are now "Do, Re, Mi..." --the first two letters of the original full verses in Latin (except for "Do", which I believe was "Ut", originally.)This kind of historical information, for me, was what made this book so fascinating to read, and opened my eyes to why things "are they way they are" in music today.Highly recommended.

A fascinatingly informed view of the evolution of temperament. Without evangelizing for any particular system, Isacoff provides a musical and philosophical basis for the tuning systems which have ebbed and flowed over the centuries. An excellent read for those more than just mildly curious.

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