Messages have been filtering through about the alternative tuning which I've been advocating.
Below is a reasonably comprehensive playlist which may be a good guide as to how well instruments and repertoire respond. A commentator on the Rachmaninoff recording complained about faulty unisons but of course my recordings are of real life concerts and those at Hammerwood require my wife and I to be general dogsbodies welcoming people and preparing, and getting mics and recording equipment prepared, without the opportunity to give that pre-concert attention to the instrument that perhaps we might for a formal definitive recording. Not all recordings are perfect but hopefully exemplify the genre.
In the course of performance one becomes aware of chords changing shape upon modulation. Upon familiarity with this ear-tweak, its loss when one is forced to suffer an equal tempered experience is devastating and the result, frustrating, unsatisfying and boring.
At the bottom of the list is a recording from 2006 when 19 years ago perhaps my tuning might be excused for being at the beginning of its journey, but still demonstrating applicability to the repertoire.
https://youtu.be/RXymuml03pE?t=843 Brahms duets - Kellner based
https://youtu.be/90964qqS3Q0?t=1162 Baroque - Kirnberger III based - https://youtu.be/90964qqS3Q0?t=3028 Voytenko and Bottesini
https://youtu.be/aIVUyu7v48U Fauré Debussy, Liszt - Kirnberger III and Mozart on 1802 in Meantone and Kirnberger III
https://youtu.be/HSiZ2ilGY-4 <yt-formatted-string force-default-style="" class="style-scope ytd-watch-metadata" title="Haydn Stravinsky Beethoven Messaein Mendelssohn in unequal temperament">Haydn Stravinsky Beethoven Messaein Mendelssohn - Kirnberger III</yt-formatted-string>
https://youtu.be/_52SJEgY2YU Mozart Schumann Gilbert Rosso - Kellner with orchestra
https://youtu.be/WKbq54Zf-OU Mozart, Saint Saens, Frank Bridge - Kellner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdILlgT4L7M Mozart Haydn - Meantone or Kirnberger III and Kellner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h_VXV0vSmA Michael Haydn, Joseph Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin - Kellner
https://youtu.be/6wdMbiOlw9s Jazz Kellner
https://youtu.be/5xhRPI1LlO0 Shostakovich - Kellner
https://youtu.be/9qy9J-fQIHI Mendelssohn - 1819 Broadwood - probably Kirnberger III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXZxR0AaXAA Beethoven - 1819 Broadwood - Probably Kirnberger III
https://youtu.be/z9gZ4g-3GXg Bach Mozart Ravel - Kellner
https://youtu.be/p8gJqrVVpdg Albeniz - Kellner
https://youtu.be/r70h0GW14k4 Albeniz - Kellner
https://youtu.be/uTiMNFjfyZ0 Jazz - Kellner
https://youtu.be/4L-sbXa6h9o Prokofiev and Turina 2013
Tuning isn't how the piano sounds. The piano isn't the end result. The end result is the music. Tuning is about how the music sounds.
Since the mass production particularly of the piano Brands in the time of Victorian industrialisation, the philosophy of tuning has been directed by the factory technicians to achieve an apparent perfection of the piano rather than a perfection of musical expression. The Brands which follow their misdirected path will cease to be relevant in contrast to any brand which now embraces the expression of the music.
As a footnote, anyone in London is welcome to visit the Pleyel showroom
where a Pleyel instrument
------------------------------
David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK
+44 1342 850594
"High Definition" Tuning
------------------------------