[joegahona]

Those descriptors ("austere," etc.) have always struck me as subjective -- I'm not one to tell people what mood they're getting from certain keys. But a root major chord will have a much different feel in, e.g., C#-major on an 18th-century tuning than in equal temperament.

I have this CD [1] in a box somewhere but can't find it on Youtube. It's a few Beethoven sonatas in the temperament he would've used. Just sounded out-of-tune to me in certain parts (especially during the Waldstein), but I don't have perfect pitch. The booklet that came with that CD is really helpful in understanding all this, and I think that might be where I learned about that Owen Jorgensen tome.

There's no shortage of similar experiments on Youtube. This one [2] has a wild one in just intonation, but I doubt that temperament was still used when Mozart was composing.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Temperaments-Historical-Tun...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEdK48CDY

[wizofaus]

Thanks for that link, I don't know if it demonstrates "just intonation" though? But the 1/4 Comma Meantone tuning just sounds horrible the moment a diminished chord comes into the picture.

[joegahona]

You're right, I mis-typed -- it's meantone, not just intonation. Someone elsewhere on this HN thread argues that's the tuning Mozart himself would've been using for that piece, which is bizarre to think about once you hear it on Youtube like that!

This is truly a fascinating world. People who argue that we should be using the original temperaments that composers used do have an argument. Imagine, for example, if Shakespeare were "tuned" to be in modern UK English rather than the English of its time.