Editing Concert pitch (section)

===19th- and 20th-century standards===
[[File:B&H Model 32 Alto Saxophone (Low Pitch).jpg|thumb|A circa 1932 Boosey & Hawkes 'Model 32' alto saxophone stamped 'LP' for Low Pitch (A=440 Hz). Saxophones tuned to A=456 Hz would be marked 'H', 'HP' or 'High Pitch']]
[[File:1915 Buescher Truetone Alto Sax (High Pitch).jpg|thumb|right|A 1915 [[Buescher Band Instrument Company|Buescher]] Truetone [[alto saxophone]] marked 'High Pitch' (A=456 Hertz). Saxophones tuned to A=440 Hz would be marked 'L', 'LP' or 'Low Pitch']]
[[File:1927_Conn_Alto_Saxophone_High_Pitch.jpg|thumb|right|A 1927 [[C.G._Conn|Conn]] New Wonder Series 2 alto saxophone marked 'H' for 'High Pitch' (A=456 Hertz)]]

Rising pitch put a strain on singers' voices and, largely due to their protests, the French government passed a law on February 16, 1859 setting the A above middle C at 435&nbsp;Hz, {{Audio-nohelp|Tone 435Hz.ogg|435&nbsp;Hz}}. This was the first attempt to standardize pitch on such a scale, and was known as the ''diapason normal''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holoman |first=D. Kern |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTv-OXC-WcgC&dq=diapason+normal+february+1859&pg=PA491 |title=Berlioz |date=1989 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-06778-3 |pages=491 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=CambridgeOrgan/> It became a popular pitch standard outside France as well, and has been known at various times as ''French pitch'', ''continental pitch'' or ''international pitch'' (this international pitch is not the 1939 "international standard pitch" described below). An 1885 conference in Vienna established this standard in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, Sweden and Württemberg.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Nafziger|first1=James A. R.|last2=Paterson|first2=Robert Kirkwood|last3=Renteln|first3=Alison Dundes|author-link3=Alison Dundes Renteln|title=Cultural Law: International, Comparative, and Indigenous|page=95|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-86550-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyirBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA95|access-date=8 January 2020}}</ref> This was included as "Convention of 16 and 19 November 1885 regarding the establishment of a concert pitch" in the [[Treaty of Versailles]] in 1919 which formally ended [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Article 282 (22) |title=Treaty of Versailles |pages=129 |url=https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf |access-date=8 January 2020  |via=Library of Congress}}</ref> The ''diapason normal'' resulted in [[middle C]] being tuned at about {{Audio-nohelp|Tone 258-65Hz.ogg|258.65&nbsp;Hz}}.

An alternative pitch standard known as ''philosophical'' or ''[[scientific pitch]]'' fixes middle C at {{Audio-nohelp|256Hz.ogg|256&nbsp;Hz}} (that is, 2<sup>8</sup>&nbsp;Hz), which places the A above it at approximately {{Audio-nohelp|Tone 430-54Hz.ogg|430.54&nbsp;Hz}} in [[equal temperament]] tuning. The appeal of this system is its mathematical idealism (the frequencies of all the Cs being [[Power of two|powers of two]]).<ref>''Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia.'' Funk & Wagnalls, 1983</ref> This never received the same official recognition as the French A&nbsp;=&nbsp;435&nbsp;Hz and has not been widely used. This tuning has been promoted unsuccessfully by the [[LaRouche movement]]'s [[Schiller Institute]] under the name ''Verdi tuning'' since Italian composer [[Giuseppe Verdi]] had proposed a slight lowering of the French tuning system. However, the Schiller Institute's recommended tuning for A of 432&nbsp;Hz<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/rev_verdituning.html |title=For a Verdi Opera in the Verdi Tuning in 2001 |publisher=[[Schiller Institute]]|year=2001 |access-date=April 21, 2013}}</ref><ref name=Rosen>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_iB90JnPrwC&q=Verdi+tuning&pg=PA17 |last=Rosen|first=David|author-link=David Rosen (musicologist)|editor=Julian Rushton|editor-link=Julian Rushton|title=Verdi: Requiem|page=17|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1995|isbn=9780521397674}}</ref> uses the [[Pythagorean tuning|Pythagorean]] ratio of 27:16, rather than the logarithmic ratio of equal temperament tuning.

British attempts at standardization in the 19th century gave rise to the ''old philharmonic pitch'' standard of about A&nbsp;=&nbsp;452&nbsp;Hz (different sources quote slightly different values), replaced in 1896 by the considerably lower ''new philharmonic pitch'' of A&nbsp;=&nbsp;439&nbsp;Hz.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lloyd |first=Llewelyn S. |last2=Fould |first2=Achille |date=1949 |title=International Standard Musical Pitch |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41364475 |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts |volume=98 |issue=4810 |pages=85 |issn=0035-9114}}</ref> The high pitch was maintained by Sir [[Michael Costa (conductor)|Michael Costa]] for the [[The Crystal Palace|Crystal Palace]] [[Handel]] Festivals, causing the withdrawal of the principal tenor [[Sims Reeves]] in 1877,<ref>J. Sims Reeves, ''The Life of Sims Reeves, written by himself'' (Simpkin Marshall, London 1888), 242–252.</ref> though at singers' insistence the [[Birmingham]] Festival pitch was lowered and the organ retuned at that time. At the [[Queen's Hall]] in London, the establishment of the ''diapason normal'' for the [[The Proms|Promenade Concerts]] in 1895 (and retuning of the organ to A&nbsp;=&nbsp;435.5 at {{convert|15|°C|°F}}, to be in tune with A&nbsp;=&nbsp;439 in a heated hall) caused the [[Royal Philharmonic Society]] and others (including the Bach Choir, and the [[Felix Mottl]] and [[Arthur Nikisch]] concerts) to adopt the continental pitch.<ref>H.J. Wood, ''My Life of Music'' (Gollancz, London 1938) Chapters XIV and XV.</ref>

In England the term ''low pitch'' was used from 1896 onward to refer to the new [[Royal Philharmonic Society|Philharmonic Society]] tuning standard of A = 439&nbsp;Hz at {{convert|68|°F|°C}}, while "high pitch" was used for the older tuning of A = 452.4&nbsp;Hz at {{convert|60|°F|°C}}. Although the larger London orchestras were quick to conform to the new low pitch, provincial orchestras continued using the high pitch until at least the 1920s, and most brass bands were still using the high pitch in the mid-1960s.<ref>
{{Cite book
 | author = John Walton Capstick
 | title = Sound: An Elementary Textbook for Schools and Colleges
 | edition = second
 | location = Cambridge
 | publisher = The University Press
 | year = 1922
 | page = 263
 | isbn =9781107674585| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=SjkhsMGNfm0C&q=standard+%22low+pitch%22&pg=PA263
 }}</ref><ref>
{{Cite book
 | author = Roy Newsome
 | title = The Modern Brass Band: From The 1930s to the New Millennium
 | location = Aldershot, Hants; Burlington, VT
 | publisher = Ashgate Publishing Limited (UK); Ashgate Publishing Company (US)
 | year = 2006
 | pages = 62–63
 }}</ref> [[Great Highland bagpipe|Highland pipe bands]] continue to use an even sharper tuning, around A = 470–480&nbsp;Hz, over a semitone higher than A440.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://publish.uwo.ca/~emacphe3/pipes/acoustics/pipescale.html|title=The Pitch and Scale of the Great Highland Bagpipe|website=publish.uwo.ca|access-date=2017-04-09}}</ref> As a result, bagpipes are often perceived as playing in B{{music|b}} despite being notated in A (as if they were [[transposing instrument]]s in D-flat), and are often tuned to match B{{music|b}} brass instruments when the two are required to play together.

In 1834 the [[Stuttgart]] Conference of the [[Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians]] recommended C264 (A440) as the standard pitch based on Scheibler's studies with his Tonometer.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rayleigh|first=J.W.S.|title=The Theory of Sound, Vol. I|publisher=Dover|date=1945|page=9|isbn=978-0-486-60292-9}} reprint of 1894 ed.</ref> For this reason A440 has been referred to as Stuttgart pitch or Scheibler pitch.

In 1939 an international conference recommended that the A above middle C be tuned to 440&nbsp;Hz, now known as ''concert pitch''.<ref name=440History>{{cite web |url=http://www.wam.hr/sadrzaj/us/Cavanagh_440Hz.pdf |title=A brief history of the establishment of international standard pitch a=440 hertz |author=Lynn Cavanagh}}</ref> This was adopted as a technical standard by the [[International Organization for Standardization]] in 1955 and reaffirmed by them in 1975 as [[ISO 16]]. The difference between this and the ''diapason normal'' is due to confusion over the temperature at which the French standard should be measured. The initial standard was A&nbsp;=&nbsp;{{Audio-nohelp|Tone 439Hz.ogg|439&nbsp;Hz}}, but this was superseded by A&nbsp;=&nbsp;440&nbsp;Hz, possibly because 439&nbsp;Hz was difficult to reproduce in a laboratory since 439 is a [[prime number]].<ref name=440History/>

In 1964, of 31 top professional U.S. orchestras, 19 were tuning at 440, the others at 441 or 442.<ref>Other Orchestras: Advice, 28 Oct 1963 - 20 Nov 1964, Folder 009-12-07, Executive Records, New York Philharmonic Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives.
https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/cba18cd4-b5f1-4055-b93f-74b9ce23fe1d-0.1</ref> In 1987, the [[New York Times]] surveyed international practice, noting that “the A of most symphony and opera orchestras today ranges between 440 and 444.”<ref>Henahan, Donal. “Finding the Perfect ‘A’ Sparks a Pitch Battle.” New York Times, 30 August 1987, H19.</ref>