My dad is a regular listener to NPR, and they had a story about this probably ~10 years ago. The story was in large part inspired by a CD where piano virtuosos played famous pieces in the alternate tempered tunings that were (most likely) used by the composers of the songs. Many did NOT use even tempering, because it didn't exist yet.

For example, it had some Bach and other Baroque pieces played on a "well tempered" piano, and some older stuff (can't remember the composer) played on a piano with Pythagorean tempering, which prioritizes *perfect* fifths at the expense of some of the other intervals.

My dad bought the CD after hearing the story. It was really interesting to listen to because of the way that the intervals favored by the alternate temperings really rang true, but ears used to modern equal tempering made everything *else* sound a little out-of-whack dissonant.

I'll have to see if I can find that story/CD.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'piano, virtuoso, difficult' to 'piano, virtuoso, difficult, audio sift' - edited by kulpims