At 5:23 PM -0800 1/10/02, Robert Wilson wrote: >Joe, >How can you say that, Chopin heard all his music a >semi-tone flat by today's standards. How can you say >it isn't just as beautiful at the pitch he knew? With A at 415 c/s ?! Who told you that? 1834 -- Paris Conservatoire fork -- 435.4 c/s >I learned on a Victorian piano at old pitch, and accepted that it >was a semi-tone flat. Which "old pitch". Almost every pitch in the world by 1870 was sharper than A=440. In London 1878, Collard tuned at 449.9, Erard at 455.3, Steinway at 454.7 and Chappell at 455.9 -- or roughly "Old Philharmonic" The Victorian age witnessed a steady RISE in pitch to an unacceptable level which was finally brought down by international agreement. Don't take my word for it; read the long and detailed appendix in Helmholtz. JD
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