# Recordings in uneven temperament?



## Dharma66 (Apr 4, 2017)

Is anyone aware of any recordings made of pieces played with an uneven temperament?


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, microtonal etudes by Easley Blackwood.


----------



## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Like this?


----------



## Bill H. (Dec 23, 2010)

I don't know of any off the top of my head, but if you search the Early Music repertoire, there are recordings of keyboard and other works in various types of mean tone temperament. I'm thinking perhaps Flemish, French etc. from the late Renaissance and early Baroque, when even temperament wasn't a universal concept. 

If you do a search on Youtube using the term "meantone temperament", you can find some examples that could guide further searches.


----------



## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

I think he means pythagorean tuning and stuff like that?


----------



## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

here is an interesting docu about old tunings


----------



## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

And for the fans of just intonation this is really interesting:


----------



## Dharma66 (Apr 4, 2017)

Thanks for the responses and links, and I should have been clearer in my question.

Yes it is "Renaissance" type turnings that I meant to refer to, so for example turnings based on a an octave composed of 55 divisions, such as 6th comma mean tone, for example.

I've been reading "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony" by Ross Duffin, and it's quite fascinating. It documents a fair amount of evidence that such systems were in use until relatively recently, and certainly well after the Renaissance period is usually considered to have ended.

For example, a fingerboard diagram from Prelleur, The Modern Musick-Master (1730-31), "The Art of Playing on the Violin," clearly shows different positions for, sharps and flats (I.e. Ab is not the same note as G# etc).









Another example, Duffin quotes a review, by Bernard Shaw, of a recital by Joseph Joachim in 1890. In the review, Shaw decries the performance as being played with terrible intonation, and sounding awful ("nutmeg grater and boot leather"). Three years later, Shaw hears him play again, writes another review, and this time attacks those who claim Joachim plays out of tune, and explains he is playing using an unequal temperament!

Sadly, the book does not refer to any recordings made in any of the systems discussed.


----------



## deamonofthefall (16 d ago)

I was really into wheee this thread is going. So sad there wasn’t an answer. I have the same question myself and was searching it. So BUMP!!!!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Michele D'Ambrosio, friend of Adolfo Barabino, plays the 24 Chopin preludes in Unequal Temperament at Emerson College inspired by the tuning work of David Pinnegar at Hammerwood Park


----------



## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Here are some recordings in historical tunings, compiled by Kyle Gann.


An Introduction to Historical Tunings



Enid Katahn, piano; Edward Foote, piano tuner: Beethoven in the Temperaments - Gasparo GSCD-332 (Moonlight Sonata, the Waldstein, and the Pathetique in late-18th-century temperaments)

Enid Katahn, piano; Edward Foote, piano tuner: Six Degrees of Tonality - Gasparo GSCD-344 (Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, in a variety of meantone and well temperaments)

J.S. Bach: Well Tempered Clavier, Robert Levin, keyboards - Hanssler 116 (in Werckmeister temperament)

Lou Harrison: Piano Concerto - Keith Jarrett, piano; Naoto Otomo conducting the New Japan Philharmonic; New World NW 366-2. (Harrison tunes the solo piano to Kirnberger temperament.)

Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Notre Dame, Hilliard Ensemble - Hyperion


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dharma66 said:


> Is anyone aware of any recordings made of pieces played with an uneven temperament?


There are many, many commercial recordings. You need to say which composers interest you.

What do you make of this?


----------

