Rating: 
Summary: A book for all musicians.
Review: I'm a pianist and I've read Temperament for the third time. Stuart Isacoff is an excellent writer who has explained tempered-tuning and how it developed throughout the history of Art. Piano students should be more aware of playing within the vibrations of the instrument after reading this book. I have purchased two copies of Temperament as gifts for friends. Highly Recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Nice try, but no cigar.
Review: Isacoff has tried to write a book on musical temperament for the general public, and parts of it are fun to read. It does have two major flaws: 1) he greatly overstates his case and deliberately omits a whole lot of information that contradicts his central thesis, and 2), he bends over so far backward trying to keep things non-technical that he not only falls down but ties himself up in knots in the process.
As a harpsichordist, I'm perhaps a little more flexible on the subject of an ideal temperament that is all things to all people, because my experience says there's no such thing. Of the various solutions that have been tried along the way, most of them served the needs of those who used them at the time. In fact, I was disappointed that his website sound samples included Chopin in just intonation and equal temperament, but no Byrd or Frescobaldi in meantone or Faenza Codex in Pythagorean, just to show us what all of those systems CAN do--especially on instruments other than the Steinway grand piano. Believe me, it's a revelation!
On the other hand, when he writes about phenomena such as Cipriano da Rore's _Quidnam non ebrietas_, it would be much more helpful to include a score and a brief explanation of the rules of _musica ficta_ (which were what caused all the trouble in the first place). I happen to own other books which include these, but I shouldn't need to consult my personal music library to read a book that is "for general audiences!"
Rating:
Summary: Nice try, but no cigar.
Review: Isacoff has tried to write a book on musical temperament for the general public, and parts of it are fun to read. It does have two major flaws: 1) he greatly overstates his case and deliberately omits a whole lot of information that contradicts his central thesis, and 2), he bends over so far backward trying to keep things non-technical that he not only falls down but ties himself up in knots in the process.
As a harpsichordist, I'm perhaps a little more flexible on the subject of an ideal temperament that is all things to all people, because my experience says there's no such thing. Of the various solutions that have been tried along the way, most of them served the needs of those who used them at the time. In fact, I was disappointed that his website sound samples included Chopin in just intonation and equal temperament, but no Byrd or Frescobaldi in meantone or Faenza Codex in Pythagorean, just to show us what all of those systems CAN do--especially on instruments other than the Steinway grand piano. Believe me, it's a revelation!
On the other hand, when he writes about phenomena such as Cipriano da Rore's _Quidnam non ebrietas_, it would be much more helpful to include a score and a brief explanation of the rules of _musica ficta_ (which were what caused all the trouble in the first place). I happen to own other books which include these, but I shouldn't need to consult my personal music library to read a book that is "for general audiences!"
Rating: 
Summary: Sex and Pianos
Review: Isacoff's approach to making temperament interesting can be summed up in the word "sex". If there is a bawdy detail to be found in even the remotest connection to a 'temperamental' anecdote, he drags it out. The result is a book that often de-rails and mixes very technical information with hearsay and gossip. On the other hand, temperament is one of the most obscure and complicated elements of music, and even some musicians couldn't care less about it. So a book on temperament that made it to major bookstore chains is no small achievement. Still, the question of the book's audience is a complicated one... those of us who care about temperament to begin with could do with a few more musical examples interspersed with the text, whereas for those to whom temperament is a new concept, the idea of a smaller or larger fifth might need a bit more clarification.
Most troubling to me, however, was the writer's obvious bias towards equal temperament and towards the piano. For him, the whole of western history (and a lot of sex...) has existed with the purpose of developing and embracing the equal temperament, and that pinnacle among instruments, the piano. To those of us who like the sound of a harpsichord, or use different temperaments to achieve more in-tune music, the book's conclusion, and it's author's bias, is unhelpful. Still I would recommend the book as a read, with the added stipulation that the reader then go out and listen to an early music concert in meantone.
Rating:
Summary: Sex and Pianos
Review: Isacoff's approach to making temperament interesting can be summed up in the word "sex". If there is a bawdy detail to be found in even the remotest connection to a `temperamental' anecdote, he drags it out. The result is a book that often de-rails and mixes very technical information with hearsay and gossip. On the other hand, temperament is one of the most obscure and complicated elements of music, and even some musicians couldn't care less about it. So a book on temperament that made it to major bookstore chains is no small achievement. Still, the question of the book's audience is a complicated one... those of us who care about temperament to begin with could do with a few more musical examples interspersed with the text, whereas for those to whom temperament is a new concept, the idea of a smaller or larger fifth might need a bit more clarification.
Most troubling to me, however, was the writer's obvious bias towards equal temperament and towards the piano. For him, the whole of western history (and a lot of sex...) has existed with the purpose of developing and embracing the equal temperament, and that pinnacle among instruments, the piano. To those of us who like the sound of a harpsichord, or use different temperaments to achieve more in-tune music, the book's conclusion, and it's author's bias, is unhelpful. Still I would recommend the book as a read, with the added stipulation that the reader then go out and listen to an early music concert in meantone.
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book...it's wonderful
Review: Like another reviewer, I learned of this book in the Economist Magazine. That other reviewer is utterly clueless. He obviously was not an amateur musician but rather a general reader with no background in playing a musical instrument and no interest in learning about the history of music.
This is an important, first rate book that is meticulously researched; every page is interesting and informative. It is a book written by a man who loves the piano, intended for thoughtful readers who love keyboards and want to understand how music came to be where it is today. It contains dozens of illustrations helping to explain the various strategies for tuning the notes of an octave; it has lots of pictures of the keyboards of early forms of the piano, harpsichord, organ, etc.
Every generation requires books of this sort to help it understand music. I have a book translated from the German in the 1940's that covers essentially the same information, which is why I make this assertion. My advice is to buy this book and keep it as a permanant possession for others to discover on your bookshelf and learn from just as you will.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: Like several others, I bought this book after reading a laudatory review in the Economist. I was very, very disappointed with the book. As a relatively new piano player, I had hoped to learn two things from the book -- (1) how pianos are tuned and why; and (2) some historical background on the development of the piano. The book delivers on neither. As several commentators have pointed out, the science of piano tuning is completely - and maddeningly -- ignored. To be sure, the author throws some fractions around in the book, but it is just about impossible for anyone but a professional piano tuner to make sense of the details. Finally, as a general introduction to the history of the piano, the work is a bust. Certainly, there are some interesting tidbits, but the organization is so poor, the argument so meandering, that it is hard to keep one's attention focused. I have to wonder: Are those laudatory reviews all from the author's friends?
Rating:
Summary: Stuart Isacoff - Prescient Gardener
Review: Marcel Proust wrote: "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy. They are the gardeners who make our souls blossom." As an author, Stuart Isacoff is a prescient gardener. In his exquisitely refined writing style, he uproots philosophers, painters, mathematicians, scientists, Popes, and, of course, musicians and sends them scampering across history
in one exciting page after another. This ouvre goes far beyond the fine tuning of instruments. It has an informed subtext that deals with the human 'race' to involve technology with the workings of the human spirit, and how such endeavors at times expose some nasty instincts for competition, achivement and even jealousy. (An evolutionary emotional lag, perhaps, for his characters could be contemporary everymen!). Lest the reader be concerned that this book may be too stuffy, too academic or too boring, Mr. Isacoff has provided clever and light-hearted, albeit revelatory, commentary on the ultimate query: From Pythagoras to Pop, Just how does one come up with the resource to fine tune basic human temperatment? Alas, the greatest challenge of all! This book is a MUST READ!!! Many thanks to Mr. Isacoff.
Rating:
Summary: Not so fast, please.
Review: Mr. Isacoff has managed to skip a hugely important period in the development of tuning, specifically the era between 1700 and 1900, in which he believes equal temperament was in use on pianos. The evidence from Jorgensen and Barbour would indicate otherwise. It is also naive to believe that tuning went from the restrictive Meantone to today's Equal Temperament in one step.
ET requires certain tests, checks, and balances to occur, and we know that those were not widely available before at least 1830.
I have tuned ET on pianos for many years, I know exactly what it sounds like, but by following the pre 1800 instructions that purportedly create equality, I find something far different than what we call ET today. Given the recalcitrant nature of piano tuners,(whose trade didn't really exist before the early 1800's), adoption of this more difficult temperament certainly didn't happen overnight.
It is one thing to simply say that people started using ET, but quite another to show that it was possible From the various Kirnberger tunings to Thomas Young, there was a generic shape to the tuning that caused the progression of "color" to be universally recognized. This common genre provided a basis for "key character". It is also interesting that in 1885, Ellis found that the master tuners at Broadwood's were not using ET.
Making a temperament "non-restrictive" does NOT make it "equal". There is far more harmonic activity in the work of these composers than ET will create but a "well-tempered" piano is required to hear it. To gloss over everything from Bach onward with modern tuning is to miss a huge part of the art. The book misses the basic and the finer of these points. Interesting read for the context, but it missed describing the true art of tuning.
Rating:
Summary: "meticulously researched?"
Review: Several reviewers have praised the author for his meticulous research. Perhaps they mean this, from p. 19: "As late as 1768, composer George Frideric Handel paid for an organ with split keys for the Foundling Hospital in London." Handel did buy an organ for the Foundling Hospital, but I can find no reference in its specs to a keyboard with split keys, which surely would merit mention as it would have been extraordinary for such an instrument. Even more extraordinary is Handel's apparent ability to make a gift 9 years after his death - in fact, he made the gift in 1749, and it was well known and widely praised for its great generosity (Handel also played many benefit concerts for the Foundling Hospital and became one of its governors). I have not read beyond this point, as I cannot have much confidence in an author of a book on a musical subject who gets wrong the date of a famous musical event, has one of the world's greatest composers still living 9 years after his death, and probably has the point at issue also wrong.
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