Rating: 
Summary: Serious and Sumptuous
Review: As a historian, I read many nonfiction books because of their promising intellectal illumination. That is why I picked up this book on history and music. But I discovered something else: Mr. Isacoff writes so vividly and cleverly about his subject. Now that is something rare, indeed! At the heart of his intriguing argument is a cultures' war that divided the Western world between purists (numbers and the cosmos as referential)and "heretics," who favored internally equal termperament. We take completely for granted this new musical regime, but Mr. Isacoff manages to restore that mighty battles that engaged such major figures as Newton and Descartes and eventually gave rise to all our muscial delights. What a great way to understand something so daunting as "Western civilization"! And what a literary feast as well. A wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting History--Little Science
Review: As an amateur piano tuner,I was acquainted with "music's greatest riddle" and the solution of equal temperament. So, I found Mr. Isacoff's book historically intriguing. But I must say that it is very weak in explaining the technical aspects of the riddle and its solution to the uninitiated. For example, except for a passing reference to "A" being 440 Hz, he presents no examples utilizing the frequencies of the various scales. I understand that "mathophobes" might be relieved not to see lists of numbers, but to many it makes the whole problem clearer. He also neglects to mention the fact that tones in relative proximity to one another produce "beats" which can be counted--essentially the technique used by piano tuners to ensure they are tuning to equal temperament. Frankly, given the length of the book, and Isacoff's penchant for historical detail, I expected a fuller explanation of the science involved.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but mistitled, therefore bound to disappoint
Review: I absolutely agree with the detractors here: the book is very different from what the title alone suggests. It *is* however very interesting in its own right though, but again, because of the title it's guaranteed to be purchased by the wrong kind of reader who will be disappointed. This is a historical essay rather than a book on music. I also noticed one of the reviewers down below reports of a number of inaccuracies, which I'm not qualified to judge, but if true, those diminish the value of the book even further. Now, the sad thing is that had it been titled correctly, it would have deserved at least 4 if not all 5 stars, it's a shame such a small mishap will sentence the book to a low score. It truly belongs in the history section and not in the music department, and they should reprint it under a more suitable title.
Rating:
Summary: Glen Coleman
Review: I cannot give this book enough praise. In an engrossing 230 pages, I was both time traveler and world traveler as I discovered the forces that gave birth to the piano and chromatic scale. It's a marvel that the musical scale, which we now take for granted, came to represent the heart of conflict between science and religion in Europe. By reading Temperment, I saw Pythagorus, Galileo, and Newton struggle over the mathematics of creating the 12 tone musical scale; I saw composers martyred at the hands of tyrannical churches and governments; I saw churches and governments fail in their effort to quell the music within inspired souls; and in their understanding of music, I saw unknown lovers of music triumph where towers of intellect - i.e. Descartes - fell. In Temperment, history, music, science, art, and religion collide, resulting in the birth of the piano. Take the journey with Isacoff. You will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A fine review of music, religion, and science in med. Europe
Review: I couldn't put the book down! Being an engineer and a barbershop singer, his references to major scientists of the times, who also developed the engineering basics that I work with, opened a door that brought the period to life. Music was a major thought in their philosophies and science, and of course was greatly under pressure because of religious beliefs (seeking the "perfect" structure). We're taught in barbershop to maintain tonal center which is "do" in any key. The devices used to do this involve equal temperament for the melody with the basic harmonies in unquestioned just intonation for each chord sung.
Rating:
Summary: Masterly written - you WILL enjoy it
Review: I found the book extremely absorbing and interesting, more for its philosophic, religious, scientific, artistic, and historic observations than for its actual musical content. Stuart Isacoff is a remarkably clear writer and some very technical concepts are presented in an easily understandable way. Even a person who professes no interest in music, let alone tuning theory, will enjoy the stories in this book about philosophers, scientists, popes, and other historical figures. The simple title belies the enormous amount of research that must have gone into this work.
Rating: 
Summary: Reconsideration
Review: I just couldn't resist buying this book and also sending a copy to one of my colleagues. I am in the process of carefully reading it and will comment when finished. Much of the early historical information is good reading, well researched and well well written. However, I do find common misconceptions and frankly, errors. I believe it is important, however to read the views of others, whether one agrees with them or not. Sometimes it results in a change of opinion, sometimes a compromise in one's thinking and sometimes a strengthening of one's original position. I do recommend buying this book and reading it but taking its premise with a grain of salt. If you'd like to read what I have written on this subject, independently of this author, please see the short message about who I am.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I purchased this book to understand the history of why the 88 key piano is tuned the way it is. Given recent reviews (including one in the Economist) I was expecting a work similar to Dava Sobel's "Longitude" that describes the historical motivation and development of accurate clocks. This is not it. Less than a quarter of the book is spent on tuning and temperament topics, and some of that is repeated. This text is not at a deep enough technical level to do justice to the topic however occasionally unexplained technical terms pop up. The rest of the book contains concurrent historical events that may be interesting but don't support or give a strong context to the main topic. I'm frustrated that the book wasn't more faithful to the storyline the title suggests. If you're looking for a clear story of why we use the tones that we do, this will leave you a little flat.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious Rubbish !
Review: I saw an interesting review of this book in the Economist Magazine so I bought it from Amazon. It has been a long time since I have been so thoroughly disappointed in any book purchase - on any subject. This is an annoying ramble through historical mysticism which has little to do with the subject matter, thought to be the tuning of keyboard instruments. It pretends to be erudite but shows its writer as a dabbler and ends up being thoroughly boring and irrelevant. Of little use to any music lover or any musician.
Rating:
Summary: Why you might/might not like this book: Reviewing reviews
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and, for the first time in my life, feel that I actually understand the issues around temperament. I would recommend this book to a lot of people but not everyone, as the number of negative reviews illustrates. The negative reviews for this book seem to fall into four categories-if you are in one of those groups then you may want to buy a different book:
1) The lunatic fringe: Examples here are: The review that castigates the book for abusing non-Western music (It's hard to see the point of this complaint since the intent of the book is to discuss the role of temperament in Western music--no real mention is made of any other kind of music); The review by the person who read only a 2 or 3 page excerpt of the book (apparently ignorance is no impediment to opinion); The person who hadn't read the book yet but would post a review when they had (see previous); The reviewer who felt that the book was all about sex (I missed that). And so on.
2) People who were unhappy about the lack of technical detail. While I am obviously disparaging the previous group, these reviewers have a valid complaint. These readers were looking for (as examples): actual scores; more math with more explicit discussion of the exact size of the differentials between similarly named tones; more technical terms (e.g. "hertz"). I have a good grounding in math, read a lot of technical material, but would probably best be described as a "music lover". I'm just not in these reviewers league. Since I don't read music, for instance, a score would be useless to me. For the audience that I represent, the level of technical detail worked very well and is appropriate for a "general interest" book. The author's description of the music met my needs and the prescence of a score wouldn't have helped. I didn't miss the technical details that these other readers were looking for.
3) Reviewers who felt a lot of the book was irrelevant and fluff. Also a valid comment as much of the book isn't directly about temperament (as an example, these reviewers would probably point to chapter 7, which is an overview of the birth of the Renaissance). However, the author's intent is not to discuss temperament but to discuss how the battles over temperament reflected much of what else was going on politically and culturally at the time. He wants to claim that the discussions of temperament reflected other battles and that the arguments over temperament were enabled only by other changes going on in the world. If that larger discussion doesn't interest you, this is the wrong book for you in the same way that the lack of technical detail made the book an unhappy experience for the previous group of readers. Again, I enjoy the kind of writing that tries to draw connections between relatively obscure technical matters and larger social interests. However, it does mean that this isn't a book that is just about temperament.
4) People who wished the author had gone into more detail/covered more topics. As examples: Apparently well-temperament has gotten short shrift (I can see that I would have liked more on the topic); The book focuses on the issues as demonstrated by tuning pianos (the author announces this early in the book); Some readers would have like more on temperament issues with other kinds of instruments; other readers wished the author had followed up on reference to temperament in China, organs, and other topics. Apparently there is room here for a larger book on this topic. I enjoyed the length of the book and it didn't leave me wanting more but that may just reveal my ignorance of the subject: Had I known more I may have wanted more. If you are looking for a medium-length discussion of temperament (a critical topic in understanding music) for the general reader and music lover, a book that tries to tie this topic into the larger cultural/political/social changes in the world--then this is a fascinating book. It's well written (a couple of stretched metaphors) and interesting (I devoured it in two days). If you are looking for a broader study, a more technical discussion, or a discussion of temperament purely in musical terms then you will be disappointed. I got excited about the topic! The book made me want to buy a CD that demonstrates the issues by playing the same piece of music in several different tunings--something that I wouldn't even have considered before.
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