St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1884-11-29
MUSICAL PITCH.

MOSISAE ~ I'll
Something which Those Persons Who
Sing in the Church Choir VIII Read with
Interest.
A petition signed by the leading mu-
sicians and instrument makers of Ger
many has recently been presented to
Prince Bismarck, praying for the estab-
lishment by law of normal musical
pitch to be adopted by the empire, and,
if possible, by other nations as well.
The matter is of great Importance to all
musicians and of special interest in
England, where this question, like most
other musical questions, has been treat
ed with shameful neglect by the author
tiles. It appears that about the begin
ming of the seventeenth century the tlrSt
successful attempt was made to manu-
facture wind instruments and to tune
stringed and keyed instruments accord
ing to a settled standard, the number OF
vibrations in the second for A being
about four hundred and twenty-five.
This standard remained essentially I'M
altered till the beginning of the present
century, and in accordance with it the
GREAT classical masters, including
Beethoven, selected the keys in which
they thought their pieces of vocal and
instrumental music would be heard to
greatest advantage. Since then, how
orer, important changes have. been
wrought The makers OF wind lnstru-
ments found that more brilliant so
norous effects could be obtained by rails
inc the pitch; the tendency of the
strings, especially of the yiolins, for the
same reason is to rise slightly, as may
frequently be ascertained on one and
the same evening by testing with tun-
ING fork the information of an orchestra
at the beginning and the end OF the
performance. The result is that during
the last fifty OF sixty years the pitch
in general has risen about half q
tone. and that, for instance, the note
which Mozart or Beethoven wrote and
intended as B flat is now actually
PLAYED as B natural. The real suffer
ers BY this state of things are the sing
ers. Their vocal cords have remained
| what thev were in the time Of Handel
and in the time of Adam; they admit
of no artificial screwing up like the
strings of violin. The consequence
is that works like Beethoven's Mass in
d, or the part of the Queen of Night in
| Mozart's Magic Flute, which demand
an unusual strain on the voice, even
according to the standard of those mas
tiers, have become almost impossible, or
at least infinitely more difficult of exc
cution in the original keys. But even
this might be borne if an international
or at least national uniformity of pitch
were permanently established. This,
however, is not the case. A foreign
singer coming to this country will find
that note written in the same manner
means something different from what it
means at home; nay, that it sounds
half tone higher at st. James Hall
than it does at Covent Garden, where
the French pitch, or, at least some APP
proach to it, has been adopted. No
wonder that they lose their sense OF
tonality, and frequently wander into
heterogeneous keys; no wonder, also,
that Mr.. Sims Reeves some years ago
refused to sing with any orchestra that
had not adopted the lower pitch. I'm
fortunately it was impossible for a. sin
gle artist, however popular, to remedy
an evil so deeply rooted. Next to the
singers the greatest sufferers are the
makers of such instruments as can not
be tuned after the manner of the violin
or the pianoforte. A trombone and a
flute may be in perfect tune at one
place, and either sharp or fat at an
other not many miles off, to say moth
ing of foreign countries, and their mar
ket value is 1essened accordingly.-Lon-
don ISn1es.