From: rmw@iago.caltech.edu (Wilson, Richard M.)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Authentic performance/pitch.
Date: 20 Aug 92 01:06:00 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In Message-ID: <1992Aug19.180904.23209@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk>,
ucap22w@ucl.ac.uk (Martin S T Watts) writes:

>  After listening a lot, lately, to John Eliot Gardiner's recording of the
>  B-minor Mass and Trevor Pinnock's Messiah, it occurred to me to see
>  whether anybody else has any opinions on the use of "authentic" pitch in
>  authentic performance.  I use quotes because I'm not so sure why all the
>  ensembles have arrived at this particular pitch, pretty much exactly a
>  semitone below modern concert pitch, for Baroque performance.
>  Is it that somebody's extrapolated back to the 1740's the upward trend
>  in frequency that has occurred since people have started making
>  numerical measurements of pitch, or has somebody unearthed a Baroque
>  tuning fork? ....  [more stuff deleted]

There have been studies of the evolution of pitch over the past couple
centuries, in particular a fundamental one by Alexander Ellis in the late
19th century.  Organs and other surviving instruments (including a few tuning
forks) can be measured.  Of course, one must be very careful because changes
may have been made in these instruments.  And oboes, for example, usually
survive without their original reeds.  And different players will get an A of
slightly different pitches from the same flute.  Nevertheless, some trends
become clear.

There were no standards, but....  it is agreed that pitch in France just
before and around 1700 was extremely low, about a tone flat to modern pitch.
Most wind instruments from the early 18th century are slighty below A=415;
some players argue that something like 409 should be the standard for modern
performances on Baroque style instruments.  By the early 19th century,
pitch was centered around A=435 judging from many early 19th century
flutes I have tried.  Some which survive with three center joints play,
respectively, at a little above 440, 435, and 430.  It went WAY up starting
at, say, about 1830, in some places.  A=452 was one of the standards in
Victorian England.  Dayton Miller says that pitch was up to A=461 in some
European orchestras at the beginning of this century.  Since we are
below that now, it is not true that pitch has ALWAYS gone up.

In my opinion there are two reasons why low pitch (415 or a little below)
is desirable for Baroque instrumental music:

(1)  There is a tonal difference.  A violin makes a different quality
     sound when tuned to 415 than to 442.  A soprano recorder has a
     different quality than an alto (treble).   Clarinet players will tell
     you that A clarinets are a little more mellow that Bb instruments.
     I definitely prefer the sound I get from a baroque flute at A=415
     to one at 440 for most purposes.

(2)  The best instruments are made at low pitch.  I'm not 100% sure why
     this is true, but it certainly is the truth in my experience.  I'm
     thinking of wind instruments primarily.  I suspect this is mostly due
     to the fact that modern makers can copy surviving instruments which
     are at low pitch--then they may try to modify them to play at modern
     pitch, and they do not succeed in making them work as well.  Another
     reason may be that makers spend more time and energy making
     instruments at low pitch because that has become the standard.
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical