Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!carroll
From: carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Transposing early music (was: Perfect Pitch)
Message-ID: <3736@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 91 23:29:27 GMT
References: <1991Mar19.082948.10987@athena.mit.edu> <3722@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> <1991Mar20.154120.24561@eng.umd.edu>
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Reply-To: carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll)
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics
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In article <1991Mar20.154120.24561@eng.umd.edu> tpermutt@eng.umd.edu (Thomas Permutt) writes:
>
>What do you advocate doing about early music?  There is evidence that A
>in, say, Handel's time was lower than today (I can't remember how much,
>but more than a semitone).  Aside from the psychoacoustic subtleties
>you mention, there are real differences:  the sound of a tenor singing
>his highest note is quite a bit different from that of a note a semitone
>or two lower, and sensitive composers used these differences to good effect.
>Tenors today may be physically different to some extent, but probably not
>precisely in such a way that A-440 now has the quality of A-420 or whatever
>then.

	I'm an engineer, not a musicologist, but I think that the difference
is something on the order of a minor third (my memory may be failing me here).

	I advocate singing the piece at the pitch at which the composer
heard it; if that involves transposing the score, so be it.

	As a baritone often pressed into service in tenor sections, I'll
withhold commentary on the possible physical differences in modern tenors :^)



-- 
Jeff Carroll
carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com