Kirnberger Temperament - Kirnberger III

After some disappointment with his sour, narrow fifths, Kirnberger experimented further and developed another possibility, Kirnberger III. (Remember, of course, that these names were not used at the time and are of modern invention.)

This temperament splits the 1/2-comma wolves between four fifths instead of two, allowing for four 1/4-comma wolves to take their place. 1/4-comma wolves are used extensively in meantone and are much easier to tune and to listen to. This also eliminates two of the three pure thirds found in Kirnberger II. Therefore, only one third remains pure (between C and E), and there are fewer Pythagorean thirds. A greater middle ground is thus reached in this improvement, and each key is closer to being equal to the next. The drawback is an aesthetic one: fewer chords have pure thirds and fifths. But every temperament system has a give-and-take compromise; each has to find a way of dealing with the comma.