[78-L] (no subject)

[Chris Zwarg]

At 22:55 15.10.2008, you wrote:
>Interesting. A problem you don't mention is the fact that 440 isn't  
>the pitch that was always used. 423 !/2 was another in use. 

I have not heard of 423 Hz being used around 1900 (as opposed to much earlier in Händel's and Mozart's days), but most of continental Europe had 435 Hz, GB and US used 438 or 439 Hz, Italy sometimes preferred 432 Hz which was of course easier on high voices, Austro-Hungaria had 446 Hz, and military bands everywhere but in France used 451 Hz - the latter often caused intonation chaos when "pickup" studio bands were recruited partly from military and partly from civil orchestras, as the high-pitched military brasses had GREAT trouble adjusting to 435 Hz "concert" pitch. 

The most (in)famous example of this are Fernando De Lucia's Phonotype records; there has been endless discussions about their pitch because the voice sounds too sluggish in one "standard" (435 Hz) key, and too light in the next higher key, compared to his earlier G&Ts with piano accompaniment or members of La Scala orchestra. You will know that De Lucia researcher Michael Henstock published two different versions of his discograhy, with all speeds "corrected" one half-tone (circa 4.5 rpm) down in the second edition. 

The solution lies literally in the middle: The Phonotype studio orchestra was recruited partly from the "Banda Municipale di Napoli" (451 Hz) and partly from the Teatro San Carlo pit-band (432 Hz) - purely instrumental Phonotype sides of overtures etc. are variously credited to both organizations - and the high banda brasses could detune only as far as circa A=448 Hz while the opera woodwinds tried their best to get that far up but usually hardly reached A=445 Hz, resulting in an EXTREMELY out-of-tune ensemble playing whose average tuning falls halfway BETWEEN two "standard" (435 Hz) keys, so Henstock's lower transpositions are quite correct for these Phonotypes, but the speeds he gives are about 2 rpm too low. 

>I made CDs from a lot of old vocal records and it was a very time  
>consuming project because of the time I spent adjusting the turntable  
>speed. Sometimes I thought I had it right and later found myself  
>going back and re-doing recordings.

Since several years now, I do all speed corrections digitally, which I find works far more conveniently, also more exactly if gradually changing speed/pitch is needed. If the original dubbing was made at 78rpm or another well-documented speed, one can easily calculate the resulting speed by applying the correction percentage used on the digital file.

Chris Zwarg