The Boston Symphony purposely tunes higher than 440, 442 I believe, and they tune to an electronically generated tone, not the principal oboist.
Boston/New England freelance orchestras tune to 440, but the pitch ALWAYS rises.
I dabble in period instrument work also:
Classical pitch we tune to A 430
Baroque pitch we tune to A 415
I have no knowledge of pre-Baroque pitch standards by current period instrument ensembles.
Regarding the last comment: "So, although it is a current trend in modern musical life, I am on the side of A=440 as a general maximum, and certainly don't see where it would be a bad thing to try things a little bit lower, especiall when doing the high horn parts in Haydn and Bach." I think it is difficult enough to keep the pitch at 440 on modern instruments, and it would be nigh impossible to expect players to tune current-era instruments any lower than that.
Bob Marlatt Boston MA
from: David Jewell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
This is a double post, so please ignore the redundancy...
The history of standard tuning is a long and complex one, more so than one would think at first glance. There are actual histories of tuning and temperament, quite specialized reading, but not all that dull, surprisingly. I don't know that it was the Versailles treaty, but there was definitely an international agreement that standardized A=440hz as standard. For several various reasons, both traditional and contemporary, pitch has almost uniformly risen to 442, then 443, and today it can be as high as A=446 in some orchestras. Higher string tensions on modern violins, the desire for more overall "brightness" in the tone, are all supporting reasons for the rise in pitch.
To digress just a little... My personal thoughts are mixed, I believe that things get subtly more difficult for the winds as pitch rises. Also, and this is just a personal opinion, the ability of an orchestra to have a "signature" sound and to maintain that quality is diminished as well. When one listens to a period instrument ensemble that uses the old pitch of A=435 or so, one can start to hear various differences in pieces in different keys. Much like the old concepts of temperament that were espoused for each mode or key center. It may indeed be only a psychological quirk of mine, (I do have an obsession with renaissance and baroque period performances, think Palestrina, Gabrieli, Schuetz, and the like,) but I find it increasingly hard to feel or hear much that distinguishes one recording from another, insofar as timbre and unique tone quality is considered. Vienna of course one can tell from the brass and horn playing, but try doing a blind listening ID of Tschaik
ovsky's
1812 as done by the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, and the Boston Symphony. It is getting harder and harder to do so.
So, although it is a current trend in modern musical life, I am on the side of A=440 as a general maximum, and certainly don't see where it would be a bad thing to try things a little bit lower, especiall when doing the high horn parts in Haydn and Bach.
Paxmaha
_______________________________________________ post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] set your options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
