From: basinski@biosci.arizona.edu (Mark Basinski)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Authentic performance/pitch.
Date: 19 Aug 92 21:31:03 GMT
Followup-To: rec.music.classical
Organization: Univ. of Arizona

In article <1992Aug19.180904.23209@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk>, ucap22w@ucl.ac.uk
(Martin S T Watts) wrote:
> 
> has somebody unearthed a Baroque tuning 
> fork? If so, who's too say it isn't out of tune? And is pitch really likely to
> have been as standardised in those times as it supposedly is now for 
> conventional performance?

     SOmebody out there correct me it I'm wrong, but I believe much of the 
"authentic Pitch" info derives from isntruments made in the 17th and 18th 
century which have survived, but can provide a non-variant pitch, like pipe
organs or wind instruments (in effect, exactly a "Baroque tuning fork". It
is true that pitch varied widely in different locations (again this can be
verified to a great extent by playing old organs that have survived
unmodified), and the really hip "authentic performance" types take this
into account as well.

     Part of the reason performers are interested in "authentic pitch" is
that
singers who have a tough time with a high tessitura of a piece have a
*much*
easier time taking it down a half step (which is more or less where the
composer intended it to lie in the vocal range)...also, some performers
using actual
period instruments like violins or viols or lutes or harpsichords do not
want to
subject the instruments to the additional stress of a tuning higher than
that
which the instrument was designed for.

     None of this is to insist that Baroque music cannot be done at modern
pitch, but many groups perform this music at the "older" pitch level for
a wide variety of reasons, to make it easier on the singers, to use an
organ
built in 1680 in a German church, to have a "darker" sound, or even just to
brag about being "authentic".

> Judging by the amount of discussion I've seen of this topic, I suppose that the
> matter must seem pretty trivial to most, but it seems to me that there is a 
> case for modern pitch on Baroque instruments, yet I'm not aware of any group
> that practises it. The case would be that ever since the Well-Tempered Clavier
> (and possibly before - I'm no historian) particular keys have built up 
> particular associations for a great variety of composers and listeners, and
> these 'key associations' seem to have remained the same, even if pitch has
> steadily crept upwards. Thus the B-minor of Bach's Mass is very much the same
> as that of Liszt's Sonata, the G-major of the Preludes and Fugues from the 48
> is very much that of Beethoven's Sonata Op.31 No.1 and Dvorak's 8th Symphony,
> as the E-flat of Beethoven's Eroica and Sibelius' 5th is a common image in
> both. There must be many more examples.

     The "key associations" originated *before* equal-temperament, and were
originally based upon the *very* different nature of different keys based 
upon Just intonation...i.e. you Tune to C major, and that causes the 
C - E major third to be a perfect and "sweet" third, but if you play in
A major, the A - C third is different. So this "key characteristic" is not
based upon the relative pitch level of the work but the pitch relationships
of the intervals of the key. J.S.Bach used to drive the organ makers crazy
by going in to inspect these organs right after they'd been tuned (justly)
and playing pieces in Db minor, etc. which sounded hideous of course...

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Mark Basinski      Internet: basinski@biosci.arizona.edu