This is a Viennese action, and its developed form (this means that hammers for the longer strings are larger - in earlier versions, they were of the same size). Viennese action is very much different from the English action in present day standard pianos. In the Viennese action, the hammer is directly on the key, you have kind of "in your hand" the hammer while playing. It has more colors therefore. The coating is leather, which leads to a characteristic sound quality. In general, you here "inhomogeneity", thus, the tembre changes with the pitch gradually, so the voices in different positions (octaves etc.) have their distinct colors (kind of: orchestration!). Contemporary pianos aim homogeneity, reproducibility, and loudness - so does the equal temperament. So, these colors that the composers did use as composition elements are kind of lost by our days, and you have to have an old piano to revive them!
This is the temperament that I learned from the piano on that Brahms plays the 1st Hungarian dance (also in g minor, but it makes no sense because the temperament is characteristic to a piano for a long time - you cannot change the temperament from piece to piece, of course). So it is documented to have been used at the time of the later Romanticism. It is somewhere between Kirnberger II and Kirnberger III in strength, roughly, the G-D-A-E fifths are tempered with 1/3 comma. It is a somewhat molled version of this (probably Brahms's piano also has a molled version). In this specific temperament, C major is almost pure, it has a pure fifth and a close-to pure third; and e minor chord is also very close to be pure. A major, f minor are known to be "spicy" in all temperaments (as the rule of thumb, these are to be "sacrified" for the sake of purity of other scales). But it is not known that g minor is also _very_ strange in temperaments, just because of the basic rules! Anyhow you want to keep clean the C-E third, you _must_ temper the G-D fifth to be very flat, and the B flat - D third to be quite wide. So, what you hear here is the actual, real, factual g minor, with its all colors! It is strange, it is unpleasant, it is fearful, it has discomfort and distress, and some very black, lightless color. Even in milder temperaments (as this one is), g minor is strong. It is strong always. Just recall Mozart's two g minor symphonies, Haydn's g minor string quartet, or... simply Chpoin's other g minor nocturne - this is it. The middle section, in E flat major is also a strange, vibrating modality, and we have A flat major and c-f minor colors in it -- a stunning palette of musical colors! It is a great loss that we do not here these in equal temperaments, but this is exactly why I am experimenting with the uneven temperaments here, especially those that can be verified musico-historically!
Beautiful! By the way, how does the keyboard action compare to a modern grand?
This is a Viennese action, and its developed form (this means that hammers for the longer strings are larger - in earlier versions, they were of the same size).
Viennese action is very much different from the English action in present day standard pianos. In the Viennese action, the hammer is directly on the key, you have kind of "in your hand" the hammer while playing. It has more colors therefore. The coating is leather, which leads to a characteristic sound quality. In general, you here "inhomogeneity", thus, the tembre changes with the pitch gradually, so the voices in different positions (octaves etc.) have their distinct colors (kind of: orchestration!).
Contemporary pianos aim homogeneity, reproducibility, and loudness - so does the equal temperament. So, these colors that the composers did use as composition elements are kind of lost by our days, and you have to have an old piano to revive them!
If possible, could you tell us why you chose this temperament?
This is the temperament that I learned from the piano on that Brahms plays the 1st Hungarian dance (also in g minor, but it makes no sense because the temperament is characteristic to a piano for a long time - you cannot change the temperament from piece to piece, of course). So it is documented to have been used at the time of the later Romanticism.
It is somewhere between Kirnberger II and Kirnberger III in strength, roughly, the G-D-A-E fifths are tempered with 1/3 comma. It is a somewhat molled version of this (probably Brahms's piano also has a molled version). In this specific temperament, C major is almost pure, it has a pure fifth and a close-to pure third; and e minor chord is also very close to be pure. A major, f minor are known to be "spicy" in all temperaments (as the rule of thumb, these are to be "sacrified" for the sake of purity of other scales). But it is not known that g minor is also _very_ strange in temperaments, just because of the basic rules! Anyhow you want to keep clean the C-E third, you _must_ temper the G-D fifth to be very flat, and the B flat - D third to be quite wide. So, what you hear here is the actual, real, factual g minor, with its all colors! It is strange, it is unpleasant, it is fearful, it has discomfort and distress, and some very black, lightless color. Even in milder temperaments (as this one is), g minor is strong. It is strong always.
Just recall Mozart's two g minor symphonies, Haydn's g minor string quartet, or... simply Chpoin's other g minor nocturne - this is it.
The middle section, in E flat major is also a strange, vibrating modality, and we have A flat major and c-f minor colors in it -- a stunning palette of musical colors!
It is a great loss that we do not here these in equal temperaments, but this is exactly why I am experimenting with the uneven temperaments here, especially those that can be verified musico-historically!
@@historicalpiano I understand well. Thank you very much.
Stanhope is also popular with similar tunings.