CROSS. — MUSICAL PITCH. 455 



During the years preceding the installation of the Great Music Hall 

 Organ, the pitch of organs and pianos shared in the general upward 

 tendency, though instruments of the former class were not infrequently 

 tuned at a somewhat lower pitch thau that used hy the orchestra. Cabi- 

 net organs intended for export were also in certaiu cases tuned to the 

 French pitch. But the organ pitch commonly used was substantially 

 identical with the high orchestral pitch, and that habitually used by 

 piano manufacturers was often even higher. 



The general lowering of the orchestral pitch in 1883 and the following 

 years, of course necessitated a corresponding lowering of the pitch of 

 pianos and organs used in concert with the orchestra, though it was a 

 number of years before any general action was taken by the manu- 

 facturers. 



In 1889 the National Music Teachers' Association at its Philadelphia 

 meeting adopted the French pitch, and the National League of Musicians 

 at Milwaukee, in March, 1891, also urgently recommended the adoption 

 of this standard. For several years prior to this date the question of 

 bringing the standard pitch used for pianos and organs into unison with 

 the low pitch which had come to be the generally accepted pitch for or- 

 chestral use, had been agitated by a number of persons engaged in the 

 manufacture of pianos and organs, and especially by the late Gov. Levi 

 K. Fuller, of the Estey Organ Co., of Brattleboro, and Mr. William T. 

 Miller of Boston. Finally at a meeting of the Piano Manufacturers' 

 Association, held in New York, March 31, 1891, it was unanimously 

 decided that it was desirable that a uniform pitch should be adopted in 

 the United States, and a Committee was appointed, of which Mr. Wm. 

 Steinway was chairman, and Gov. Levi K. Fuller, Secretary, to consider 

 what standard should be adopted. This committee collected much evi- 

 dence relating to the subject, and in response to a request therefor, 

 received expressions of opinion from a large number of manufacturers 

 and others interested in the determination of a standard, together with 

 sample tuning-forks giving the pitch then in use by those sending them. 

 The Committee reported in favor of the adoption of the A of 435 double 

 vibrations per second as a standard of pitch, and their recommendation 

 was adopted by the Association. It was also decided to call the newly 

 adopted standard the " International Pitch." 



The International pitch is of course identical with the French pitch, 

 each having an A 3 of 435 double vibrations. Some confusion has arisen 

 at times from the fact that the official standard A 3 made in 1859, and 

 intended to represent the " diapason normal," is in fact somewhat sharper 



