Aprils, 1880] 



NATURE 



553 



trace of systematic plan or execution. It has been both aimless 

 and vacillating — often merely capricious. I find no mention of 

 -ition to mean pitch till the French Conservatoire in 

 1S12 u ed A 440, apparently as an experiment, for it found no 

 adhesion. This pitch, afterwards proposed by Scheibler, and 

 adopted by a congress of physicists at Strassburg in 1834, was 

 really a resuscitation of the English li flat foot organ pitch. 

 The great change was initiated by the presentation by the 

 Emperor of Russia and an Austrian Archduke of sharper brass 

 instruments to two household regiments in Vienna in 1S16, and 

 this subsequently entailed a rise at the two Vienna operas, which 

 had to use these bands occasionally. The sharpening spread 

 slowly and grudgingly through most of Germany. At Dresden 

 it rose from the flutist Furstenau getting a new flute from Vienna, 

 but had not quite reached A 440 in 1862. At the celebrated 

 Gewandhaus concerts at Leipzig the sharpening went on more 

 rapidly to A 449 in 1S59, and in France, after a very chequered 

 career, the pitch of the Grand Opera, which was A 427 in 1811, 

 and A 434 to 440 in 1S29, where it remained to about 1854, 

 became A 44S to 449 in 1S58, when the great increase of pitch 

 and the diversity of standards used in different towns induced the 

 French Government to issue a commission, which resulted in 

 establishing the French Diapason Normal A 435 in 1S59. This 

 pitch, being a quarter of a tone above mean pitch and about the 

 same below the high orchestral pitch then reigning, enabled 

 music of both kinds to be sung with tolerable ease. And this 

 is of great importance, for we cannot afford to discard either 

 classical or modern music, and to sing either to the pitch of the 

 other is to do injustice to both composer and singer. The 

 sudden change was, however, troublesome and expensive, 

 although France, like England, had passed through that pitch 

 without any complaint a few years before. 



In England the increase of pitch abroad apparently induced 

 Sir George Smart to alter the Philharmonic pitch about 1828, 

 after consultation with singers, and he raised his fork to A 433, 

 keeping, however, mean-tone temperament. This is practically 

 the French normal, and the mean-tone C of Sir G. Smart actually 

 coincides with the equally-tempered Cof the French. This fork 

 was long in use, and copies of "Smart's C" were greatly in vogue 

 down to 1S46 and later, stamped "Philharmonic," although the 

 Philharmonic Society never issued a fork. But under the baton 

 of Sir Michael Costa the pitch rose rapidly, and the mean pitch 

 from 184610 1854 was A 452I. The Society of Arts in 1859, 

 in imitation of the French Commission, called together a large 

 committee of musicians and men of science, who decided on C 528, 

 to which they supposed would correspond A 440 (which would 

 be just intonation), instead of A 444 (in equal temperament). Mr. 

 Griesbach was commissioned to make the standard, but his C 528 

 turned out to be C S34'S, giving A 449 - 4, but incorrectly tuned as 

 A 4457 by a short monochord. Hence, in the market, the Society 

 of Arts pitch is one of those very sharp pitches which it was 

 intended to moderate. In 1 874 the Philharmonic Concerts reached 

 their maximum of A 4547, and Steinway's pianos — which in 

 England are at this pitch, in common with Broadwood's, Erard's, 

 Brinsmead's &c. — at New York have gone up to A 457. Hence 

 we have most undesignedly reached a chamber pitch, a great 

 semitone above the classical music, and most unmusicianly play 

 classical compositions written for mean pitch at this disfiguring 

 sharpness. Covent Garden Opera has, however, resolved to 

 ado] t the French compromise system this season. Abroad in 

 Germany, after a very general adoption of the French Normal, 

 orchestra] pitch again rose, and Vienna, which had reached 

 A 456 before 1S59, wa> at A 447 in 1878. The re.-t of Ger- 

 many seem- to be lower, Dresden intending to be A 440, but 

 really -lightly flatter. Bologna was A 443 in 1S69, and the rest 

 of Italy is probably not greatly different. There is, however, 

 but one standard of pitch now in the world, the Diapason 

 Normal at the Conservatoire at Paris, actually A 435 '4, and even 

 Belgium, which has a military standard of A 451 (the same as 

 h Army Regulation), had decided by a Commission to 

 adopt French pitch, which only the expense of providing new 

 instruments to the army at present prevents. 



The above rapid survey of the history of musical ] itch may 

 be condensed into the following table, in which all such pitches 

 as I have here mentioned, together with a few others, are in- 

 cluded. The column T gives the number of tenths of an equal 

 semitone 1 y which any pitch exceeds the initial zero pitch, so 

 that by subtraction of their tenths the interval between any two 

 pitches in the table may be instantly ascertained. The column 

 marked A gives the nearest whole number of vibrations of A in 



numerical order from the lowest to the highest, embracing an 

 interval of a whole Fifth. As it takes an increase of two or 

 three vibrations at these pitches to rise by the tenth of a semitone, 

 the same tenth- will be foun i to corresp >nd to different numbers 

 of vibrations, all being given to the nearest whole number only. 



Condensed History ok Musical Pitch 

 1. Church Pitch Lowest. 



T. A. 



O ... 370 ... Zero pitch, not observed. 



2 ... 374 ... L'Hospice Comtesse, Lille. 



3 ... 377 ... Schlick, low, 1 5 1 1 ; Bedos, 1766; French C foot 



organs; A. Silbermann at Strassburg, 17 14. 



2. Church Pitch Low, 



10 ... 392 ... Euler's clavichords, St. Petersburg, 1739. 



11 ... 395 ... Trinity College organ, 1759; English C foot 



organs; Roman pitch pipes, 1720. 



12 ... 396 ... Versailles Chapel, 17S9; French B foot organs. 



3. Chamber Pitch £0:0. 



.. Roman pitch, 1730, from a fork. 



.. Sauveur, Paris, 1713. 



.. Mattheson, Hamburg, 1762. 



.. Pascal Taskin, Paris, Court Clavecins, 17S3. 



Pitch/or Two Centuries, English B foot Organs. 

 .. Chained fork of the Roman Catholic Church 



organ, built by G. Silbermann, 1722. 

 .. Same organ in 1878. Euler's organs, 1781. 

 .. G. Silbermann's Freiberg organ, 1714 ; Torje 



Bosch's Seville Cathedral organ, 1785 ; and all 



church organs in Spain. 

 .. Stein's fork for Mozart's pianos, 1780; Lower 



resonance of Cremona violins, 1700 ; Old fork 



at Lille, about 1754 ; Verona and Padua, 



1780; Russian Court church band, 1S60. 

 .. Handel's fork, 1 751 ; Green's St. Katharine's, 



177S, and Kew, 1790; Dresden Opera under 



Weber, 1S15-21 ; Paris Comic Opera, 1S20. 

 .. Prretorius's "suitable" church pitch, 1619 ; 



Original Philharmonic Concerts, 1S13-1S2S. 

 .. Paris Grand Opera, 181 1. 

 .. Renatus Harris's organs, 1696; Green's St. 



George's, Windsor Castle, 17SS; Paris Comic 



Opera, 1823. 



5. The Compromise Pitch. 

 Sir George Smart's fork, 1828. 

 Paris Grand Opera, 1S29. 

 French Diapason Normal, 1S59. 



•rn Orchestral ami * Ancient Medium Pitch. 

 Paris Conservatoire, 181 a; Paris Opera, 1829; 



Scheibler's Stuttgart pitch, 1834 ; Dresden, 



1862. 

 'Father Smith's ( = Bernard Schmidt's) low pitch 



at Hampton Court Palace, 1690; English B 



flat foot organs. 

 Bologna, Liceo Musicale, 1869. 

 Madrid, Opera, 1S58; Naples, S. Carlo, 1S57. 

 Broadwood's medium, 1849-80 ; Paris, Grand 



Opera, 1856; Griesbach's A 4457, i860, for 



Society of Arts, meant for A 444. 

 Vienna Opera, 1S7S. 

 Paris Grand Opera, 1S58; Leipzig, Gewandhaus 



Concerts, 1859; Griesbach's C 534"5, i860, 



for Society of Arts, meant for C 528. 

 Lille Opera, 1848 and 1S54; Briti>h and Belgian 



Military Instruments Standard, 1879; Higher 



resonance of Cremona violins about 1 700. 

 Mean of the Philharmonic Concerts under Sir M. 



Costa, 1846-54. 

 Highest Philharmonic, 1874; Broadw 



Erard's, Brinsmead's, and (English) Steinway's 



concert pianos, 1S80. 

 Vienna celebrated high pitch before 1S59. 

 (American) Steinway's pianos. 



7. Church Pitch High. 

 Vienna, large Franciscan organ, 1640. 



427 

 42S 



35 ••• 45i 



