Behind the Scenes, Part IV

This is the fourth post in a series that discusses the general principles important in the world of Early Music.

4. The use of appropriate pitch

Compare the following three performances of the Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs, from the Molière/Lully comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, first performed in 1670. The piece is notated in G minor.

Recording 1

Recording 2

Recording 3

In each of these recordings, the music is being played in the same key, but at a different pitch. In the first recording the instruments are tuned to the low pitch of A-392, in the second at the slightly higher A-415 and in the third just below A-440. Which one is historically correct? Does it even matter?

In the general music world today, pitch is conveniently standardized at A-440. This international standard was set (by the wonderfully named 'acoustical committee of the International Organization for Normalization') in 1953 and has become the pitch at which everyone (supposedly) plays. Until I discovered the Early Music movement, this world of A-440 was all I knew about and all I needed (except for one memorable occasion when I played a Mozart concerto at a local retirement home, where the upright piano they owned had descended through neglect to about A-400). Then, suddenly, I learnt about 'Baroque Pitch', which is a semitone lower, at A-415. Gradually I came across 'Classical Pitch', which sits in between at A-430 and is used for everything by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. A-440, I came to realise, was 'Modern Pitch', and didn't have anything to do with music of the past.

The truth is, these Early Music pitch-centres are as much a standardization as anything that we see in the general music arena. Pitch in fact varied an extraordinary amount in previous centuries, depending mainly on the pitch of local church organs and the design of the wind and brass instruments in any given place. Why wind and brass? Because these were fixed-pitch instruments, as opposed to flexible-pitch instruments such as violins that could be tuned up or down in minute increments according to where they needed to be. Composers often had to transpose some musicians' parts in order to fit with others' in the same ensemble. Thus, in the case of Bach cantatas from Weimar, the A-465 organ might have its part notated in G Major in order to match the A-415 instruments, whose parts for the same piece would be notated in A Major.

Aside from organs and wind instruments, the needs of singers are also vital to any choice of pitch-centre. Depending on the singer and his/her vocal range, this choice can be key to something either sounding high and brilliant (or strained), or low and resonant (or rumbly).

Bruce Haynes' brilliant book A History of Performing Pitch: The Story of 'A' tells as full a story as anyone could ever wish for. If anyone ever doubts the variation in pitch from place to place, they need only look at the appendix on historical organ pitches throughout Europe. From pre-1670 until the year 1830 there was an organ representing almost every incremental pitch step between A-385 and A-500. Only sixteen numbers are missing, but I bet they existed somewhere. Of more relevance, though, for musicians today, are the national trends. German tunings, on the whole, were very high, with organs mostly in the 460s and above. French instruments tell the opposite story; organs in the late 17th century were rather low - mostly in the 390s, with very few going above 415. The same is true for the majority of French traversos in the same period.

Thus, in our original comparison of recordings, it is the first (at around A-392) that can be considered the most 'historically correct'. But the question remains, does it matter? For purely instrumental music that doesn't involve concerns over a singer's vocal range, surely it doesn't make much difference...

...but what about sonority? This aspect is often talked about - the fact that different pitch-centres result in completely different sonorities and timbres (lower pitch-centres sounding generally more resonant, and higher pitch-centres sounding tighter and more brilliant). Could it be that Lully tailored his music to the sonority of A-392? I remember the first time I tuned my modern violin down to A-415 as an experiment when I was practising Bach one day. Even with steel strings, the violin suddenly blossomed in sound in a way I'd never heard before. It was as if my instrument had been born to play at A-415.

Praetorius wrote of this issue in 1618:

"...the higher pitched an instrument is made...the fresher they sound. And this in spite of the fact that at this [lower] pitch, harpsichords have a sweeter and more resonant sound...flutes and other instruments are also more beautiful at such a low pitch, and give quite another timbre to the listener."

I'm more inclined to believe, though, that any descriptions of the differences in sonority between pitch-centres are subjective, and connected to what we as individuals are used to. We all have a pitch area to which we're most used to hearing specific repertoire, and when we hear anything higher, we call it 'bright' or 'strained' and anything lower sounds comparitively 'loose' or 'relaxed'. To suggest that the music of Lully is especially appropriate for A-392 because of a more relaxed timbre and sonority seems wishful thinking. A composer's choice of key was undoubtedly tailored to the properties of specific instruments, but not pitch-centre itself. Composers dealt with the pitch they had through necessity first; only after becoming used to the pitch did they express preference for it.

Thus, we can tune to A-392 in order to feel more authentic (and to get beautiful results), but, as the other two recordings testify, performing at slightly higher pitches doesn't change the effect of this music. Pitch is essentially a practical issue; it's great to do what was done at the time, but so long as the pitch we choose works now, with the instruments and singers available to us, then minor fluctuations of pitch don't really matter.