Sal Salvaggio wrote: > What was the low pitch in Bach's Germany - 392?
The question assumes there was one low pitch in all of Germany, which is not the case. Here are a couple of web sources on the subject. I don't vouch for either of them. >From http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ohscatalog/newbacorinst.html: The new Bach Organ at Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where J. S. Bach was active for 27 years, replicates the one that Bach knew as a youngster in his hometown of Eisenach where his uncle was the City Organist. Built in 1696-1707 by Georg Christoph Stertzing to a 60-stop specification drawn by Bach¹s uncle for St. George¹s Church, the organ is long extinct. But, because it must have had strongly formative influences on J. S. B., the replication of it by organbuilder Gerald Woehl of Marburg has drawn much interest. Among its many features is tuning to the ³choir pitch² of Bach¹s time, A=465 Hz., as well as a device which lowers the pitch of the entire organ two semitones to baroque chamber pitch, A=415 Hz, for performance with instruments. >From www.dolmetsch.com/defsb.htm throughout his life, Bach worked with instruments at a number of pitches including Cornett-Thon (around 470 Hz.), Kammerton (about 418 Hz.) and Tief Kammerton (403-395 Hz.). The notation of various voices varied, depending on where he was at the time (all pitches given as a' in Hz) Weimar (1708-1717): the organ was at Cornett-Thon, and during his first year he wrote a part for an 'oboe' a major second higher than the other voices (organ, vocal, strings), implying that the strings and vocals were pitched to the organ, and that the oboe was pitched a note lower than that of the organ, pitched at the highest version of Kammerton. By the end of 1714, this oboe disappears and has been replaced with an 'hautbois' which was pitched a minor third lower, as were the bassoon and the recorder. Their pitch was Tief-cammerton. All his Weimar works show this disposition Köthen (1717-1723): the pitch is the same for all instruments. In trying to establish what it was, the vocal scores help. The range of the parts is unusually high, and when Bach used Köthen material in Leipzig, he lowered the vocal parts to Tief Kammerton. One can assume therefore that this was the Köthen pitch. The problematic trumpet part in the 2nd Brandenburg would be much easier on an instrument at Tief Kammerton. [I have no clue why it would make any difference to the trumpet player what the pitch was, since his notes would be the same --HP] Leipzig (1723-1750): surviving sheet music for most of his vocal works shows that strings, vocals and woodwinds were all pitched at Kammerton, while the organ and the brass were higher by a major second. Bach's predecessor Kuhnau had mentioned in an earlier letter to Mattheson that the organs of the Thomas and Nikolai churches were at Cornett-Thon. But he had woodwinds at his disposal at both normal Kammerton and Tief Kammerton pitch, which therefore differed in pitch by a minor second. From the time of his appointment at Leipzig until 4th July 1724, Bach wrote a number of works in Tief Kammerton. In the 1730s, he transposed the Magnificat from E flat (Es) to D, most likely because he had no longer had to deal with woodwinds pitched at Tief Kammerton. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
