C Minor.- Plaintive, with the character common to all minors, but hardly mournful. ("Qui Tollis," Mass 12.-Mozart.) D Major.-Vigorous and spirited. A great favourite for vocal chorus. This key is, in fact, the highest choral scale in use. ("Hallelujah Chorus," "Messiah.") D Minor.-Fine and solemn. E Major.-Very joyous and spirited, but also capable of great expression. This key might be called incisive in character. ("I know that my Redeemer," " "Messiah.") E Minor.-Grand and spirited minor key, very useful for solemn martial work. (Mendelssohn's Lieder," ," "March of the Knights Templars.") F Major.-A most useful key, quiet and smooth. A very great favourite with all composers, and capable of great and varied expressions. ("He shall feed His flock,' ""Messiah.") F Minor.-A pliant key, sad and wailing, not often used. G Major.-Perhaps a little commonplace, but most useful; not so bright as D or E major, but brighter than F major. Frequently used for all kinds of work. G Minor.-Most beautiful key, melancholy and grand. This key is, perhaps, as fine as any of the minors, and has been used for some of the finest passages of our great composers. (Prayer in "Mosé in Egitto.") A Major.-Very fine, bright and sprightly. It is a general favourite, and may be found expressing the thoughts of all our composers when they have desired a bright and flashing effect. ("Sonata to Haydn," first movement.-Beethoven.) A Minor.-Most delicate, often used as the complementary minor to C. Mendelssohn wrote some of his best Lieder in this key. This key B Natural.-Uncommon key, but very incisive and lively. has hardly had justice done to it, as it is so very bright. In organ music this may be accounted for by the want of profundity of the bass note. B Minor.-Like all the minors, wailing, but not so pathetic as its fellows. ("O God, have mercy!"-Mendelssohn.) D Flat Major.-A very fine and grand key, used to express some of the tragic ideas of our great masters; not so popular as it should be. E Flat Major.—A key that gives an expression too well known to want description. This scale is capable of the most exquisite expression, and is a general favourite. Some of the best of our great works are in this key. ("If with all your hearts,' Elijah.") A Flat Major.-This key deserves special notice as being the great outcome of our present system of tuning. In the unequal temperament it was not to be used, but with us it has become the most popular of all keys for expressing sad, melodious, and tranquil ideas. It is beautiful to a degree, and has a character of its own. It is difficult to choose any one example, but, perhaps, that "Lieder ohne Worte," beginning Mendelssohn's 4th book, gives as good a specimen of its effect as any. B Flat Major.-Not by any means so pleasing as the last. It is often used by all composers, and is a quiet, inoffensive key, with nothing particular save its dulness to recommend it. The above are the ordinary keys, with their peculiarities. As we said, no one can quite account for the differences, but there they are. CHAPTER XXVII. The Variations of Pitch. PERHAPS there is no point that has been more disputed among musicians than that of “pitch," and even now it has only been settled with respect to this country in a slipshod manner, and without serious regard to natural acoustics. The gravity or acuteness of a note is termed its "pitch." Notes having the same number of vibrations are of the same pitch. There is a standard for this country from which all instruments are tuned for socalled "concert" pitch. This note is the C, having 528* vibrations per second. The point was so far settled at a meeting of the Society of Arts, 5th June, 1860; but according to Sir John Herschel, the natural divisions of notes rise from one vibration per second by octaves thus, 1, 2, 4, 8, &c., under which arrangement the natural pitch of that C would be 512 vibrations per second, so that the present concert pitch is really sixteen vibrations above the natural one. With regard to the pitch to which an organ should be tuned, there are so many matters to be considered, that it is not at all settled which is absolutely the best method of proceeding. Of course the question of orchestral organs, pure and simple, such as are in halls, public places, &c., where they would frequently be required in harmony with an orchestra, is settled by the pitch above alluded to, and to which all concert music, &c., is played. But for congregational and general music, the present pitch is considered trying. It will be interesting, therefore, to observe some of the differences that have arisen in this particular, and also to note the several theories that are supposed to account for some very remarkable variations with regard to the standards that have been found prevalent at different times and in different countries. Many persons are of opinion that for at least two hundred years the musical pitch has been gradually rising, and that in the time of old Father Tallis it was about two tones below our present standard. That such could hardly be the case is *The actual fork made as a standard turned out to be C-534-5. manifest when we see how very low the music of that period is scored. It is with difficulty that some bass passages are sung, even at the present pitch, and it is not probable that the scale of the human voice has changed. Indeed, this last idea has been seriously argued, but it is utterly untenable to thinkers. The voice is perhaps the most perfect piece of mechanism in the body, and the idea that in so short a time nature should have found sufficient cause to make so great and important an alteration is scarcely probable. The best solution of this difficulty seems to be that in the sixteenth century there were two distinct pitches. The ordinary one, if we may use the term, was low; whereas the ecclesiastical pitch was actually higher than our present one. This is borne out by the fact that in Germany it is found that the old organs built about that period were at least a tone above our pitch. It seems that in that country there were no less than three standards, called severally the Orchestra Pitch, which was the lowest, the Chamber Pitch, which was slightly higher, and the Church Pitch, which was the highest. Mr. Hopkins, who has gone thoroughly into the question, points out that the very low notation of church music is almost a proof that a high pitch was used in the churches. It is interesting to note that Father Smith, who always tuned his organs to a lower pitch than the old supposed one, chose what is really the mathematically correct standard. The pitch then gradually became lower, and exactly as this advanced, so did the notation in proportion become higher. Hence, by following the music written between the two extreme periods, we can with some degree of accuracy trace the gradual but steady fall of the pitch. But with regard to the organ in particular, the great point of importance is, What pitch is to be chosen now? Although organs and pianos are tuned to C, it must be remembered that the majority of musical instruments are tuned to A, so that it is convenient to take this note as the standard when speaking of various pitches, and, where necessary, reduce the number of vibrations to the note C by rule of three. The following relations will be a guide. In equal temperaments, the note A, giving 444 vibrations per second, corresponds to the C giving 528, and conversely. In giving the old pitches it will be well to remember that the only method we have of carrying pitch is by means of the organ pipe or the tuning fork, the latter dating only from 1711, so that prior to this date the organ pipe was the only means of determining the pitches to which instruments had been tuned. Both pipe and fork alter with temperature, the former becoming sharper as the temperature rises, the latter somewhat flatter. The pipe alters by one vibration for every thousand for one degree Fahrenheit, nearly; this therefore necessitates that for taking standards or accurate notation of pitch, organs should be reduced to a fixed temperature; the fork alters only about one vibration in 21,000 for each degree, so that practically this deviation may be ignored. Mr. Alexander Ellis has entered very fully and exhaustively into the subject of pitch, and the result of his labours has been given to the public in some interesting articles appearing in Nature (1880). We are indebted to him for the following résumé, which is, in fact, a condensation of all that need be said with regard to the various pitches that are known. At present almost all organs, not ordered otherwise, are tuned to what corresponds to an old medium pitch, to be heard on an old organ at Hampton Court Palace, and on the organs of St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, as at present tuned. It is in reality what the Society of Arts intended theirs to be. 370 374 377 391 392 CONDENSED HISTORY OF MUSICAL PITCH. 1. Church Pitch, Lowest. Zero pitch, not observed. L'Hospice Comtesse, Lille, Schlick low, 1511; Bédos, 1766; French C foot organs. 2. Church Pitch, Low, A. Silberman, Strasburg Minster, 1714. Trinity College Organ, 1759; English C foot organs; Roman 396 Versailles Chapel, 1789; French B foot organs. 404 407 3. Chamber Pitch, Low. ...Roman pitch, 1730, from a fork. ...Sauveur, Paris, 1713. 4.08 Mattheson, Hamburg, 1762. 409 ...Pascal Taskin, Paris, Court Clavecins, 1783. 415 418 422 4. Mean Pitch for Two Centuries, English B foot Organs. 423 424 427 ... 433 434 435 Same organ in 1878. Euler's organs, 1781. G. Silbermann's Freiberg organ, 1714; Torje Bosch's Seville Handel's fork, 1751; Green's St. Katharine's, 1778; and Kew, Prætorius's "suitable" church pitch, 1619; Original Philhar- Paris Grand Opera, 1811. Renatus Harris's organs, 1696; Green's St. George's, Windsor 5. The Compromise Pitch. Sir George Smart's fork, 1828. |