It may seem somewhat strange to allocate part of what is predominantly a social study to a technical aspect of the piano tuner’s art. However, over the period which is being examined, the matter of concert pitch was a source of perpetual upheaval and strife to the piano tuner.
Concert pitch is now fixed at A440Hz, a pitch recognized and adhered to internationally for many years (although the Berlin Philharmonic tune to A444 now, and a few of the Russian orchestras to A446). This was not always the case.
The nineteenth century was a time of upheaval, innovation and flux in the piano industry: nothing stood still for very long, and today’s innovation rapidly became yesterday’s news, and this applied to pitch and the piano.
Successive inventions had led to an increase in size and strength of pianos, leading in turn to an increasing ability on the part of the pianos to tolerate higher and higher tension and therefore higher pitches. Within the space of only thirty years, concert pitch rose from A430 to A450, which created enormous problems for piano tuners. Broadwood were making bigger and stronger pianos all the time, capable of the higher pitches which were regarded as desirable: in 1860 they were using Broadwood Concert Pitch (A451) which was a phenomenally high pitch, even by today’s standards – Clara Schumann complained about the shrillness of that pitch. Dr Alastair Laurence has a set of tuning forks given to his great grandfather at the 1862 National Inventions Exhibition: the three forks are for Concert Philharmonic Pitch, (C540), Medium Instrumental Pitch, and Vocal Pitch (A430), all of which would have been in current use. A singer, therefore, might require the piano to be tuned at a lower pitch than a pianist, and pianist might compromise a piano tuner by asking him to tune an old instrument to one of the modern pitches, thereby endangering the strings and frame of the piano. Concern over this can be seen in a leaflet issued in the late 19th century to piano tuners on behalf of Bechstein, imploring them not to raise the pitch of the delicate-framed instruments.
Doctor William Pole wrote in Grove of 1894 that the high pitches:
altered the character of the best compositions; it tended to spoil the performance and ruin the voices of the best singers; and it threw the musical world into confusion from the uncertainty as to the practical meaning of the symbols used; and all for no object whatever, as no one could affirm that the new pitch was on any ground better than the old one.
The pianist Richard Burnett has recorded a CD called Consolations on a heavily overbarred Broadwood from 1859 which has been tuned to C540/A451, and the sound of the piano is quite different to the usual modern A440, (even taking into account the fact that an 1859 piano is quite different in tone to a modern one).
Bechstein were very critical of the high pitches, and were concerned that constant raising and lowering of pitch was serving to destabilize their instruments, and quite rightly so: pianos cannot keep having their pitch changed arbitrarily, and the problem was so widespread that hiring firms would maintain different pianos at different pitches in an attempt to alleviate the stress of yo-yo tuning on their instruments.
Pitch varied from town to town in England as well, providing another tuning headache: in 1880 Henry Fowler Broadwood wrote to George Rose regarding the difficulty of supplying instruments for provincial tours:
I will not send out new non-concert instruments, therefore the regular concert instruments form our only resource – then again I will not send these packed – but only in a van – and accompanied by a tuner.
A letter to The Pianomaker in 1913 showed the extent to which the problem had escalated: despite an agreement being made in the 1890s to standardize pitch, military bands were a law unto themselves, fuelled by cynical instrument makers in league with bandmasters who changed pitches arbitrarily to force bandsmen to periodically renew their instruments. T.G. Dyson, then the President of the Music Trades Association of Great Britain, wrote:
So long as the military bands retain their present pitch (C537.5), it must be recognized; but there is no reason why some eight other pitches should not be swept out of the way for musical purposes, leaving the international pitch (C517.3) which is now the only recognized pitch in America as well as on the Continent, and the military band pitch as the low and high pitch of this country.
Considering the ‘international pitch’ had been in effect for over twenty years at that time, it seemed to have had little or no effect on the music world in general, if Dyson was referring to ‘some eight other pitches’.
In 1896 A.J. Hipkins wrote in his History of the Pianoforte that:
The French pitch, or Diapason Normal, is now generally adopted on the Continent and has made its way to the United States of America. In this country, with the exception of the Italian opera, which has been at the low pitch for the last 15 years, we may say the high or Philharmonic pitch has, from 1846 to 1895, prevailed. … The Philharmonic Society, has, however, for 1896, relinquished its high pitch and adopted the Diapason Normal.
Different piano makers had their own pitches: from 1849-1854 Broadwoods used A445.9, escalating to A454.7 in 1874. Collard’s 1877 pitch was A449.9, Steinway (in England) in 1879 used A454.7, Erard used A455.3 and in 1877 Chappell tuned at to 455.9. So it can been seen what the ramifications were for the piano tuners of the day – they had to be aware of the latest modifications in pitch, had to be aware of the physical limitations of the instruments in their care, and had to be able to explain all these factors to the demanding client who might not understand the intricacies of piano technology.
From: Gill Green MA
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