Why the resistance to equal temperament lasted so long, and how it was finally overcome, is a story that encompasses crucial elements of Western culture - social history, religion, philosophy, science, economic development - in a period when Europe was struggling to give birth to the modern age. Stuart Isacoff hereby recounts this great battle over the best way to create music - a battle that culminated in the destruction of the harpsichord and the emergence, from its flames, of the piano. Kjp boken Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization av Stuart Isacoff (ISBN 9780375703300) hos . A fascinating celebration of the piano, including tales of its masters from Mozart and Beethoven to Oscar Peterson and Jerry Lee Lewis, told with the expertise of composer and author of. For hundreds of years, musicians, craftsmen, church officials, heads of state and philosophers fought heatedly against the introduction of 'equal temperament' tuning. It is difficult now to imagine the keyboard as other than it is yet this was precisely what many European musicians practising before the nineteenth century demanded of their instruments.

But this 'equal temperament' tuning was once a hugely controversial notion. For hundreds of years, musicians, craftsmen, church officials, heads of state and philosophers fought against the introduction of equal temperament tuning. The piano is the best loved of musical instruments, thanks in part to the elegant symmetrical design of its ivory and ebony keyboard that ensures each pitch is reliably equidistant from the next.

Temperament by Stuart Isacoff