On Sep 5, 2009, at 6:07 AM, David Rastall wrote: > But I don't understand: with all the transposing going on between > 465, and 415, what is the outcome pitched at? When TK says, "put the > whole thing in Eb, and the thing is ready," my question is: Eb tuned > in what?...415 or 465?
They're playing in Eb at 465. The recorders are pitched at 415, playing a transposed part in F. > Another question: if everybody was supposed to be playing at 415, > why were all instruments not tuned at 415? Why were some pitched at > 465, and the other French tuning at somewhere below A = 415 (I can't > remember what the number is)? Because technology transfer in the 17th and 18th centuries was slow, and the woodwind business was a seller's market. The Germans (and, indeed, the English and Italians) were fairly quick to adopt the newly refined baroque flutes and newly developed oboes and bassoons that came out of Paris, but not so quick to learn how to build them. Thus the new instruments remained an item of international trade for a generation or so. The foreign buyers were willing to take the instruments pitched at 392 and adapt by lowering local pitch or transposing, and the Parisian makers, evidently able to sell all the instruments they wanted to sell pitched at 392, had no reason to develop instruments at the myriad local pitches of the places to which they were being exported. I'm not sure where 415 enters the picture, but the whole-tone and minor third transpositions are still with us. Modern clarinets are in Bb (whole tone low) or A (minor third low) or Eb (minor third high or sixth low, depending on your point of view), and indeed in modern bands, trumpets and cornets are in Bb, clarinets and saxophones in Bb or Eb, treble clef baritone horns in Bb, and indeed all the brass except the trombones (and tubas?) are transposing. This is partly traditional, partly because of inherited notions about what pitch the instruments sound best at, and partly so that instruments can be built in different sizes without requiring the players to learn different fingerings; a sort of wind instrument tablature. > Apparently singers were supposed to be > that flexible too... Well, you don't have to tell the singers -- just give them a starting note. I haven't really studied it, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bach's vocal parts tend to avoid the high and low extremes of the singers' ranges, so the parts could move up or down a tone without causing problems. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
