You can find more information here:
http://encyclopedia.lockergnome.com/s/b/ Pitch_(music)#Historical_pitch_standards
Michael Cook
On 19 avr. 05, at 21:12, Leigh Daniels wrote:
Andrew,
Thanks for the detailed information!
**Leigh
On Tue, Apr 19, 2005, Andrew Stiller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ok, first of all, there is no different standard. The A-440 standard
was adopted because in ages when instrumental music dominates, there
is a constant pressure to raise the pitch because instruments sound
more brilliant at higher pitches. Without regulation, the result is
pitch inflation to uncomfortably high levels. Since A 440 was adopted
as an international standard (by convention, not by law) ca. 100 yrs.
ago, pitch inflation has been successfully capped--but it has not been
abolished. A great many orchestras play sharp by small amounts, and
this is what your friend seems to have encountered in Europe--though
believe me, he could have easily found it in this country too.
You're wrong about past pitch standards too. Instruments first came to
the fore in the 16th century, and the resulting pitch inflation got so
bad that by 1610 pitch was fully a minor third higher than it is today
(Praetorius, for example, gives C below the bass staff as the standard
bottom note for choral basses). Singers were going hoarse trying to
sing old music at the notated pitches, and string players were snapping
strings when they tuned up. To get around this, competing Chorton and
Kammerton pitch standards were adopted for different types of
ensembles. The two came back together in the late 18th c. (exactly how
has never been clear to me), but pitch inflation persisted, and had
once more become troublesome by the mid-19th c. A series of commissions
settled on A-440 as a compromise, and that's how it's been ever since.
(And since someone's bound to mention it, yes I know that the US held
out for C-256 for many years after everyone else adopted A-440--but
eventually we came round, and the end result is unity on a single
standard. Watch for a similar outcome in RE the metric system.)
There is, BTW, a short-wave radio station that does nothing but broadcast a continuous A-440 worldwide as the embodiment of the standard.
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