Posted by K on June 03, 2003 at 13:38:07:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: B&S 4P posted by Rick Denney on June 03, 2003 at 12:51:09:
According to my readings the original Cremonese string instruments have had their necks and several structural elements of their bodies rebuilt exactly to withstand the higher string tensions.
Connoisseurs report, that these rebuilds narrow in the complexities of the original instruments.
The very idea of attempting to maintain more than one pitch standard invariable end up as an offence towards people with perfect pitch. Which is not a God-given gift, but just an ability to remember the pitch of ones musical environment.
The A=415 "baroque" or old pitch is a fiction anyway. No historic samples supports it. It is only chosen because it is exactly a semitone below A=440. When I hear performances on 415-replicas i invariably find them sounding dull.
My country is a 440 area with an accepted glide up to 442. Once I was asked to be a 1st bone ringer in a brass band of my area. The then lead cornet had absolutely no technical foundation on his instrument, so his overly tense embouchure came out with a 446 pitch. Which the director accepted. Anything practised on my no higher than 442 bone was worthless.
If a sharply pitched embouchure is combined with a sharply pitched instrument, then return the instrument to its maker or get him make it a longer main tuning slide.
JoeS has reported on having been burned by buying a high pitch woodwind instrument, which was tough to unload again. In these ages of modern communication, there is absolutely no reason why anybody should deviate from the most common standard: the one of A=440.
My posting might appear to encompass contradictory elements, but that does not tell me schizophrenic. When all the pros and cons are counted, the only possible conclusion has to be: keep one standard, A=440, for practical purposes and to avoid offending peoples' ears.
Klaus
PS: A travelling 445 orchestra visited our radio on a tour some decades ago. A piano concerto was on the programme. Nobody told the hosts of the 445 pitch standard. Hence the piano was tuned to A=440. The orchestra did not want to bother the soloist with a dress rehearsal. Hence the disaster did not unfold until after the long orchestra intro. But then it hit right home.