Ask Augustin 12 - About Intonation Part 3

Here's the next installment of Ask Augustin, delving deeper into questions of intonation. In this episode I focus specifically on thirds and sixths - how narrow or wide should we make them and how should we hear them? It depends on the context and also the period when the music was written. Major thirds are usually a bit wider in romantic music (more like they are tuned on the piano, and sometimes even wider than that) in order to enhance the intensity of the harmonies, while in the renaissance and baroque era pure third intervals were preferred (with major thirds being a lot more narrow than they are tuned on modern pianos). These pure thirds sound beautifully consonant, and are great in chords (in moments when the intonation is mainly vertical, and we hear intonation in terms of whether notes are in tune with what's happening at the same time). If you're not careful you can get into some weird situations and end up with very odd-sounding scales (for example, half-steps that are so big that they don't make any sense melodically, or strange-sounding modulations). Therefore, even in Bach there are cases when we should not play pure third intervals, if it might cause one of the voices to not make sense anymore on its own terms. And we don't need to think about pure thirds when there is only one line and no chords (when the intonation is horizontal, not vertical)
I also give an example of how the same note might not be exactly the same pitch depending on the context -- so that it sounds well in tune with what else is going on.
If all this sounds really confusing, it's because it is! Half of the work of playing in tune is deciding what in tune actually is. The other half is trying to then play as close to that as you can!

Видео Ask Augustin 12 - About Intonation Part 3 канала Augustin Hadelich