Norm's Favorite tracks on Alonetone

by Norm

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14:19

Mozart Sonata No. 11 in A Major K311 in meantone tuning

Uploaded June 16, 2011 12:55am.

Often I am asked about the difference between “normal” 12 equal tuning and microtonal tuning.

Thanks to a retuning by Gene Ward Smith to meantone tuning (I don’t know which) you can compare this famous piece of music in the familiar 12 equal or what was arguably the standard tuning of Mozart’s day, meantone.
From the microtonal wiki http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Meantone

Meantone temperaments are based on two generating intervals; the octave and the fifth, from which all pitches are composed. This qualifies it as a rank-2 temperament. The octave is typically pure or close to pure, and the fifth is a few cents narrower than pure. The rationale for narrowing the fifth is to temper out the syntonic comma. This means that stacking four fifths (such as C-G-D-A-E) results in a major third (C-E) that is close to just.

This morning I rendered a Mozart piano sonata. I can see from the midi file that this is a live performance captured from a midi keyboard into a computer. (A live performance doesn’t always line up on the bar lines and other such “humanizations” are evident) This is the sonata with the famous Alla Turca melody which comprises the last movement.

Details here: http://tinyurl.com/n2r4yr

I rendered this with pianoteq which is a pretty high end virtual piano. The piece is a bit over 14 minutes long and is a 34 megabyte download.

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Guest said June 25, 2011 4:16pm

Lovely upload - don't think I've ever really listened to this piece before. Interesting changes!