Excerpt from Founded on the Tempered Scale: With Questions and Exercises for the Use of Students
Modern music owes much of its beauty to the use of "doubtful chords;" that is, chords which belong equally to more than one key. Now, if an enharmonic scale were feasible, such chords could not exist, because mathematical correctness of ratio would make every chord strictly in tune in one key, instead of allowing it to be somewhat out of tune in several keys. The whole of our musical literature, from the works of Bach to those of Wagner, would therefore be unavailable for instruments with an enharmonic scale.
It is said voices and instruments of the violin class, not only can, but do make use of an enharmonic scale. This is tantamount to saying that singers and violinists, when reading from a separate part, know whether a note they are sounding is used by the composer according to its apparent notation, or as part of a chord of a different nature, or as both interchangeably; and not only this, but are also aware in each case what the fundamental sound is, from which the ratios of vibrations are calculated, and what is the exact ratio of the note they are sounding, and in defiance of notation are altering the pitch of the sound, or in other words are making two or more notes out of the one before them, so as to adapt it to its various combinations.
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