My harpsichord was built in 1961 by Rainer Schütze (Heidelberg, Germany).
 It has two manuals, the lower with an 8' and 4' stop, the upper with 8' and lute. It is a somewhat special instrument because it is originally built for Gustav Leonhardt.

Historical temperaments
I like to play baroque music on it, not only because of its elegant sound, but also because playing old music with its original historical temperaments has an extra dimension, which is totally lost when played on the piano. It really makes a big difference.

Demonstration of different ways of tuning a keyboard instrument
I thought it would be interesting to be able to hear and compare different tunings in sound examples, so I tuned my harpsichord in various ways and recorded it. (In order to play the soundclips, you need Realplayer7.

You can hear three different tuning systems:

• Mean-tone temperament (renaissance/baroque)
• Kirnberger III temperament (baroque)
• Equal (modern) temperament, (19^th, 20^th century, nowadays used in for example piano's)

* Mean-tone temperament
Very common before the baroque era, but also during the baroque.
In this temperament, the choice of keys is limited to those with not more than two or three flats or sharps. This tuning system has rather many perfect major thirds, and that is why the harpsichord-sound begins to "shine" in its characteristic way when tuned meantone. I think the harpsichord sounds best in this temperament:

Help with playing the soundclips and using the PDF-files can be found in the Technical info section

 

Listen to "prima parte" (the first part) of
"Partite sopra Follia" of Girolamo Frescobaldi (Italy, 1583-1643).
  Clip 1  More Info / download clip

I also improvised some chords to demonstrate these pure thirds .
 Clip 2   More Info / download clip

The consequense of those very perfect thirds is that some other thirds are unusable, like C#-E-#, or F#-A#.
Listen to a series of parallel thirds, starting with c-e, going upwards.
  Clip 3   More Info / download clip

The other consequence of these bad thirds is that some keys are "impossible" to use, though some composers used the ugly sounds you can get in this tuning to portray for example evil. To demonstrate the difference between pure and "bad" triads, I recorded a sequence that moves through all the major keys: you will hear the limitations of mean-tone clearly when I move into the keys with many sharps or flats. 

Listen how I  play a sequens and move from C to F to Bb to Eb to Ab to C# to F# to B to E to A to D to G and back to C. Keys like C# and F# in the middle sound horrible: composers of those days did not use them
  Clip 4   More Info / download clip

 View / Download score in PDF-file format of the sequens I play

* Kirnberger III temperament
During the baroque era composers started looking for less extreme temperaments than meantone, to make modulations to keys with more than three flats or sharps possible (like Bach, in his "Das wohltemperierte Clavier"). It is a common misunderstanding to say that Bach was thinking of the equal temperament when using the word  "wohltemperiert", as used in for example pianos nowadays.
When you hear the same sequence as before in Kirnbergers temperament, you can at least say that the result is acceptable for the ear (certainly the baroque ear) when playing through all the keys, like for example in F# and C#.
 Clip 5  More Info / download clip

Still, the keys with few sharps or flats like C and F still have the purest thirds
(Listen to the same series of parallel thirds , now played in Kirnberger III).
  Clip 6   More Info / download clip

Some keys have more tension in their chords than others, but that was something composers actually used: F-minor has a rather melancholic character, which a-minor does not have. In modern equal temperament it's not really possible to speak about difference in character between the keys.

* Equal temperament (modern)
(Used in pianos, in harpsichords only used when playing modern music)
In this system al thirds are relatively equal: there is not any perfect thirds any longer at all. The only perfect interval is the octave. All the major thirds are a bit too high, all the minor thirds a bit too low: all the keys have the same character, at least, if the piano tuner has done his job well. There is no difference in character any longer, when modulating from key to key (listen to the sequence, now in equal temperament), and all thirds are equal
 Clip 7   More Info / download clip

 (Listen to the same series of parallel thirds , now played in equal temperament)
 Clip 8  More Info / download clip
 

On this website you can also hear an organ with baroque temperament: the Wagner-organ in Trondheim. Go to section about the Barokksuite I composed for this organ, tuned in Werckmeister temperament.

• My harpsichord also has a lute stop, which means that the strings of the upper manual are a bit muffled: you can hear this elegant effect here.

• Clipnumber Filename	Kb	Ta	Musical contents of  the clip	Other info
  Clip 1 49HARPSICH_07	326	64	Prima parte (the first part) of "Partite sopra Follia" of Girolamo Frescobaldi (Italy, 1583-1643).	Demonstration of some keyboard temperaments, played by Wim Kamp on his harpsichord
  Clip 2 50HARPSICH_08	636	64	demonstration of perfect thirds in meantone tuning You hear the 8' of the lower and upper manual
  Clip 3 46HARPSICH_04	178	64	scale of major thirds played in meantone
  Clip 4 43HARPSICH_01	193	64	Sequens through all major keys played in meantone
  Clip 5 44HARPSICH_02	149	64	Sequens through all major keys played in Kirnberger III
  Clip 6 47HARPSICH_05	149	64	scale of major thirds played in Kirnberger III
  Clip 7 45HARPSICH_03	193	64	Sequens through all major keys played in equal temperament
  Clip 8 48HARPSICH_06	149	64	scale of major thirds played in equal temperament
  Clip 9 51HARPSICH_09	223	44	demonstration of the lute stop of my cembalo

   

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