Meantone example

A few weeks ago I mentioned that some beautiful harpsichord music
played in quarter-comma meantone was going to air on the American
National Public Radio show "Harmonia." Well, it turns out that they
just recently started archiving the shows in Real Audio format! So
you can hear it any time, whether or not you live in America or your
local station airs the show (as long as you can play Real Audio
streams at about 32 Kbps, anyway).

To hear some especially colorful uses of quarter-comma on French
Baroque harpsichord, go to the link below, select the show "The Sun
King 00-43" and scan up to about 39:30 or so (the piece starts at
about 38:55). There's a lovely tritone around 40:30. Just after 27
minutes the guest mentions the tuning and a very little bit about how
it changed the recording. The piece immediately following the dialog
is also sumptiously non-equal, tuning-wise. Some of the other pieces
on the show are nice, too, but these two best show off some of the
too seldom seen facets of meantone tuning.

http://www.indiana.edu/~harmonia/archives.htm

Nothing startling for most of us who are used to hearing intervals of
any and all sizes. But if, like me, you always wondered what baroque
music sounded like in tunings of the era, this is a sweet treat.

I listen to this show fairly religiously, so now that it's more
widely and conveniently available, I'll try to remember to point out
other interesting tuning examples whenever I notice them.

What a great time to be alive!

David Finnamore