Pitch
The name of any note, say “A,” can be situated by musical notation on a page of
score, but it cannot so easily be situated in the acoustic spectrum. The number of
vibrations per second of a string or air column that produces written “A” has been a
variable element over the centuries. Two recent essays on this difficult question, of
obvious importance for authentic performance of opera:
- Arthur Mendel. “Pitch in Western Music since 1500: A Reexamination.” AM
50 (1978): 1–93.
Mendel, one of the leading pitch scholars, here revises and updates his several
earlier writings on the topic. He considers evidence for absolute pitches before
1834, for each instrument and voice range; and pitch in Bach, Mozart, and
others. Pitch standards employed at various opera houses are compared; they
show a general rise in pitch from 1829 (A = 434 at Paris Opéra) to 1878 (A =
446.8 at Vienna Staatsoper) but with many variants. In our own time the Paris
pitch averages 447.2 during performances. Mendel cautions: “notions that the
tendency of pitch standards has been continuously upward...are false.” - Stratton, John. “Some Matters of Pitch.” OQ6-4 (Summer 1989): 49–60.
In a convenient summary of the situation, directed at opera matters, Stratton
deals with the historic pattern, concerns of singers, preferences of certain
opera conductors, and the special questions raised by phonograph recordings.
On the last-named point, see also “Pitch” in Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound
in the United States (#434), 535–536.
Participants
Conductors
- Gavazzeni, Giandrea. La bacchetta spezzata.Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1987. 234p.
ML457 .G34.
The author, music director at La Scala from 1965 to 1972, and also a conduc-
tor at the Metropolitan, offers interesting views of opera from the podium.
Chapters on operatic conducting of Victor de Sabata, Arturo Toscanini, and
Wilhelm Furtwängler are followed by Gavazzeni’s own perspectives on operas
of Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner. Phrase-by-phrase analysis and accounts of chal-
lenges posed by singers. Indexed.
349.Jensen, Luke. “The Emergence of the Modern Conductor in Nineteenth-Century
Italian Opera.” Performance Practice Review4 (1991): 34–63.
In the early 19th century the violino principaledirected the orchestra. He had
no full score but just his own part with cues for the other players and the
singers. In France conducting with a baton emerged in the 1820s, over critical
disapproval, and the baton became the norm at the Opéra by midcentury. In
Italy the two approaches were continued together for some time. The article
describes the cooperation between Verdi and two of the conductors who
74 Opera