In preparing for concerts and progressively making recordings I'm finding examples where there are identical repertoire examples on contrasting instruments and different unequal tunings.
One such pair of recordings popped up today - a Liszt Nocturne recorded on revoiced Yamaha C3 (and THANKS to Susan Kline for her genius in voicing technique suggestions) and likewise revoiced Broadwood Iron Concert Grand of 1859. The latter instrument was on hire to Sir Charles Hallé and was in circulation on the Broadwood hire scene when Clara Schumann came to London, and is documented intimately by https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42604885.pdf. The story goes that a member of the audience in Manchester insisted that it was the most wonderful instrument he'd ever heard and that he _had_ to buy that instrument and for which he paid the full new price of 250 Guineas.
Whilst writing, a few other instruments and a second item of repertoire have surfaced.
Here are the recordings -
1859 Broadwood - tuned to Kirnberger III temperament variation - https://youtu.be/289iHaTM2f4?t=750
1885 Bechstein - tuned to Kellner temperament variation - https://youtu.be/fj0ruBDawck?t=1471
20th century Yamaha C3 - tuned to Kellner temperament variation - https://youtu.be/4ZiAwLsEzJo?t=40
Potentially the examples might be of interest in our perspectives of instrument development, relationship of 19th century composers to instruments they would have been familiar with at the time as well as possible interpretations through temperament.
Liszt Consolation
1885 Bechstein Model III - Kellner variation - https://youtu.be/fj0ruBDawck?t=670
20th century Bechstein Model B - Kellner variation https://youtu.be/Dm5E4h9cGJ8?t=1617
1960s Steinway model B - Kellner variation - https://youtu.be/IdvT6mAEYjc?t=170
1960s Steinway model S - Kellner variation - https://youtu.be/Pm2ZvjLVF9M?t=303 although poorly recorded, apologies
Yamaha CG1 - Kellner variation - https://youtu.be/Z_e94lRIrfo?t=365 although poorly recorded, apologies
Whilst some of these recordings are in themselves less than ideal, others are a close match of reasonably good equipment so that potentially some comparisons are valid.
Possibly the first question might be whether the style of tuning for each different instrument is appropriate for that instrument?
The second question relates to unisons and vibrato or envelope modification.
Whilst in the course of a tuning I'm relatively careful with unisons, the sheer incapacity of pre-modern (1870s and before) instruments to give the depth and detail of control in tuning that can be achieved with a modern instrument has caused me to be not so precisely hard or OCD about totally absolute perfection in the unisons, liking a sound that's slightly alive.
As far as musicians are concerned many are paying fortunes nowadays to use magnetic reel to reel tape for recording because they consider it to be more alive. A good reel to reel recorder achieves only as low as 0.05% (frequency not cent) wow-and-flutter, 0.1% being typical and more than 0.5% starting to be unacceptable for piano recording and it's such slight vibrato which gives an illusion of "life" to the sound. Perhaps this might give an indication of the limits to the tolerances within which tuning of unisons should be kept so that for instance if we look at A440.0 we might accept a 0.1% movement in the second harmonic which would put our variation of A between 339.8 and 440.2 upon the sole criterion of recording on a standard of studio machines at the Revox PR99 level. https://youtu.be/rfqhL7UaB3Y?t=1020 and https://youtu.be/rfqhL7UaB3Y?t=1883 was recorded with a Revox A77 measured at 0.07% and 0.13% W&F. The vibrato to the sound there is the tape recorder and not the unisons.
Whilst as technicians we might be obsessive for the perfect unison, I'm not wholly convinced of its necessity or even desirability.
The third question might relate to authenticity. In bringing forward a tuning concept from the 19th century mid-period Broadwood into the more modern and modern era instruments have we brought forward anything successfully to the modern instrument, of value or deleteriously?
Best wishes
David P
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David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK
+44 1342 850594
"High Definition" Tuning
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