I recently moved my harpsichord to my apartment. It has been about ten years since I had it on hand to play daily. I have spent much of the time tuning it. With the changing season and the alternating dry/wet and hot/cold, it goes out of tune almost every day.
In my most recent tunings, I've tuned it to 1/3 comma meantone, which is a tuning that goes back to the Renaissance. Its defining characteristic is minor thirds at the pure 6:5 ratio, which makes music in minor keys sound startlingly sweet and serene. As one goes around to more distant keys, though, there are some very sour intervals, and then there's a "wolf" interval that sounds absolutely horrendous. I can't even find an example of how it sounds on harpsichord, but on Sound Cloud I found a synthesized version of 19-tone equal temperament, which is more or less 1/3 comma meantone extended to 19 keys per octave (hard to describe in non-technical terms; just listen).
"Seigneur Dieu ta pitié" by Guillaume Costeley. I found this piece while looking for information on 1/3 comma meantone and 19-tone equal temperament. Costeley, who lived in the 16th Century, apparently was the first to theorize this tuning. I wish I could find a recording of this piece sung by a choir.
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