# Recordings in original tunings



## Timmy1729 (Oct 3, 2020)

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but my searches haven't come up with anything.

I'm looking for recordings in original tunings. I'm not picky. I just love music and want to listen to it in it's original tuning. But searching online has turned up everything except that. Please help me find some.

I had a professor in University that mentioned he had the entire Beethoven's 9th Symphony in the original tuning. 

Thank you!


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

If you are referring to pitch in relation to tuning (surely you must be) then your professor in University, I'm afraid, was talking through his hat! Tunings in the 18th century were all over the place. From the early 18th century, pitch was set by the use of tuning forks (invented in 1711), and there was a big variation there right up until the middle of the 19th century
For example, Handel's 1740 tuning fork was pitched at A=422.5 Hz, while his later one from 1780 was pitched at A = 409 Hz, about a quarter-tone lower. Beethoven's tuning fork was pitched at A = 455.4 Hz, well over a half-tone higher. Tuning varied wildly from town to town, venue to venue and orchestra to orchestra and this was the case all throughout Beethoven's time. If you aren't talking about pitch then I really haven't got a clue what you're getting at. 

Overall, there was a tendency towards the end of the 18th century for the frequency of the A above middle C to be anywhere in the range of 400 to 450 Hz so there could be huge differences when performing pieces in concert (which drove singers, in particular, nuts). Pitch wasn't standardised till the 1930s.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

There are quite a few Baroque recordings "on authentic instruments" and even some recordings on the fortepiano, the predecessor of the modern piano. They mostly just sound weak and slightly out of tune.

On a similar note I spent considerable energy last year looking for Baroque brass music on "natural" trumpets, that is, hunting horns without any valves, which is what the music was originally written for. They're SURPRISINGLY hard to find. I think I found one or two, but I can't lay my hands on them just now. Can't remember where I filed them


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

How far back do you want to go? Atrium Musicae de Madrid did one album of "Music of Ancient Greece" trying to reconstruct authentic 2000-year-old music from papyrus and pottery shards. I'm sure most of it is HIGHLY speculative but it's still interesting.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

NoCoPilot said:


> On a similar note I spent considerable energy last year looking for Baroque brass music on "natural" trumpets, that is, hunting horns without any valves, which is what the music was originally written for. They're SURPRISINGLY hard to find. I think I found one or two, but I can't lay my hands on them just now. Can't remember where I filed them


By going back over my Amazon receipts I found the natural trumpet recording I bought:









Apparently Balsom is ONE OF THE FEW modern brass players working with period unvalved instruments.

Sorry if this is "off the subject" of wanting original tunings, but it was what I originally thought of.


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