Meantone Temperament at the North German Baroque Organ in Örgryte New Church, Göteborg, Sweden

Hans Davidsson presenting Quarter Comma Meantone Temperament at the North German Baroque Organ in Örgryte New Church, Göteborg, Sweden
FILM
LUMIÈRE LIINASON
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Göteborg International Organ Academy
A World of Tactile Passion and New Sounds - for All!
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[@elysianfibres1642]

Playing pieces of music created for meantone temperament on equally tempered instruments is like watching a colour movie on a black and white TV.

[@bencarterviola]

very good analogy

[@electric7487]

Not only that, there are a lot of non-classical songs that I can already see sounding much more expressive in 31-tone equal temperament instead of 12. (Quarter-comma meantone is practically identical to 31-tone equal temperament).

[@EElgar1857]

Yes!😁

[@Tom-Lahaye]

Our ears don't lie, this temperament has something in it what equal temperament doesn't have. The perfect harmony on one hand, and the tension on the other hand. When applied in a way like the second music piece these tensions have a goal, hearing the dissonance resolving in the perfect third gives you a feeling of relieve every time it is played, I think there is no stronger resolution possible in music than this one.

[@scottjampa8308]

with three split black keys (the nearby sharp and flat separated by a diesis) in the Rückpositiv and two in the other three manuals and pedal, it's basically covering sixteen pitches from 31edo

[@scottjampa8308]

the tuning standard is a presumably 17th century 'Chorton' A 465 Hz

[@hymnodyhands]

I feel like something missing in our understanding of music today was added back here... THANK YOU

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

First time I have seen an organ other than the Arciorgano that has split flat/sharp keys, although I have heard of them. This one has split G♯/A♭ and D♯/E♭ keys on most manuals (unfortunately couldn't get a view of the pedalboard), but the lower manual also adds A♯/B♭, EXCEPT in the lowest half-octave, in which the 2 split flat/sharp keys are instead in the positions for F♯/G♭ and G♯/A♭ while the keyboard seems to have its lower end at E, which looks to me like a sign of a C/E short octave -- except that the other manuals do not have this feature in their lowest half-octaves. The Wikipedia article on the North German baroque organ in Örgryte Nya Kyrka lists most manuals as having compass CDEFGA-c(3), but lists the Ruckpositiv(*) as having compass Rückpositiv CDE-c3, so presumably the short octave on this one must be using the split flat/sharp keys for F♯/D and G♯/E (or maybe the reverse of each), while the other manuals use the non-split keys in these positions for D and E (leaving out the F♯ and G♯). The pedal compass is listed as C-d(1), so apparently it doesn't have a short octave. (*)This is listed third, but Ruckpositiv sounds like a lowest manual name, so it presumably refers to the lowest manual that would in most places (including other Wikipedia articles) be listed first among the manuals. Interestingly, this organ is a recent build (having been completed in 2000), having been designed by study of several different historic organs built by Arp Schnitger.

[@racker9999]

In my next life, I would be fully satisfied to serve this organ and this organ master. The work is more complicated than a moon shot; the result more lovely than moonlight.

[@musimedmusi8736]

Wonderful demonstration and performance. Many thanks for this!

[@diegoluisgiaccari]

Excelente! Temperamento! el Mesotonico 1/4 es el mas lindo! de todos! y en los organos queda excelentemente bien! yo! con un amigo en mi pais Argentina restauramos un Organo Ingles Bryceson 1864 y los afinamos con el temperamento Mesotonico 1/4 ya que los ingleses lo utilizaron hasta mediados del siglo XX . mi piano tambien lo afine con el temperamento Mesotonico y suena perfecto y sus disonancias tambien! son Preciosas!!!

[@mattlegrand6742]

Very good demonstration! Thanks.

[@ivarasplund4265]

Cool!

[@syncmusic4007]

Why is the notes tuned so sharp , almost 1 semitone higher than standard 440 tuning

[@hienpaine_utoris9512]

What’s the name of the piece @5’25”

[@MarekMichalakMusic]

Pretty sure that's Girolamo Frescobaldi's "Toccata per l’elevatione" F 12.45

[@chrisengland5523]

I'm not much of a musician (more of a physicist, so I understand the theory). However, I was surprised that the type of tuning makes such a difference on an organ. Unlike most instruments, pipe organs exhibit loads of non-harmonic overtones, which I would have expected would mask any beats due to imprecise ratios between 3rds or fifths. In contrast, I would expect such beats to be painfully obvious on instruments that only have harmonics.

[@alcyonecrucis]

What are the church modes ?

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

Wikipedia has an article about that (I'd post the link, but then KZbin would eat the post -- but it's an easy search).

[@adammikulasek]

Hello, this is much powerful on electronic keyboard which supports different tuning than equal temperament. My keyboard support meantone, Pythagorean and similar temperaments. The greatest advantage is that if I want play something in c# mayor but it sounds much better in C major, I transpose keyboard one semitone higher, play it in c major and it will play c major intervals in c# major -> transposing not only the tones, but also transposing the selected temperament. Pure thirds are beautiful also with distortion effect, so that it is not useful only for classical music, or classic techno music but also for hard rock and other style of modern music. :-) And of course, that keyboard has realistic sounds for example of various organs (couple, church, Hammond organ with distortion, etc...), harpsichord, etc., so it can be used also for classic music with advantage of temperament transposition without manual tuning of every tone like on acoustic instruments. Many Yamaha keyboards support it, i am sorry I dont know how it works on keyboards of other producers (Korg, Roland...). :-( I think it is also useful to home training organ music, because keyboard with multiple temperaments and good sounds of couple + church organ are not so expensive, some cost under $1000. :-)

[@bartk07]

In early music education we are taught that temperaments other than equal were inferior and people long couldn't find a good temperament. Another legend is that Bach wrote Wohltemperierte klavier to show how good was equal temperament. Nothing is more untrue. He just exploited different features of unequal temperaments (even if it is not meantone anymore in his times). Equal temperament is simply boring and colorless. People simply didn't like it back then, it didn't fit all the rhetorical figures of baroque, even if it was known way before it stuck for good. Even Mendelssohn and Brahms sounds better with slightly unequal temperament.

[@holmespianotuning]

A beautiful sound. The temperaments we must avoid at all costs are Vallotti and it’s transposed Young version. They are one of the greatest evils in music and unsuitable for any music from any period.

[@Blokfluitgroep]

Why should we avoid these?