Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Play Bach at 440 Hz or 415Hz ?

Hello.

We all know Bach was from the baroque period. In his time, music was composed not in 440 Hz, but in baroque pitch (415 Hz (!?)). 415 Hz is lower a semitone compare to 440 Hz.

What is your opinion about the pitch we should use to play Bach musics? I still confuse about "well-tempered". J. S. Bach means we can modulate his music in all keys? Or he means all keys have own color to compose?

Bach did not compose his music at 415Hz. He composed music. The reference pitch Bach had available varied wildly according to location and varied from 392Hz to about 465Hz. Bach actually transposed the organ part of his Magnificat to C from D so that a particular organ he was using (@ ~465Hz) would match the primarily french made wind instruments which were much lower and could be tuned at ~415Hz.

Well Temperaments have a variety of key colour. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier compositions sound wonderful in a mild WT, but most people today fear WTs, and they likely base their fear on ignorance, that is to say, they actually have never heard a WT, and that is fine if you only play very late 19th century music. I find early to middle 19th C music, Chopin, for example, in any key, sounds lovely in a WT.

Here's a reference:

http://robertspianoservice.com/2017/11/invention-tuning-fork/

.... that says the tuning fork was invented in 1711, and used 423.5 Hz for A.

If you own a few HIP CDs, you'll soon notice that they don't use a standardized pitch. (BTW, YT videos are unreliable in pitch).

And even today, if you go to central European countries, you'll find that they favor higher pitches for more brilliant sound. The Wiener and Berliner Philharmoniker (orchestras) tune to something like A=448. Considering that Verdi composed for singers singing at A=332, no wonder they have to screech in their opera houses......

(N.B. HIP = historically informed performance)

You can gather the information from original wind instruments and organs. Pitch was all over the map. Play it in whatever pitch you deem to sound nice. As someone once remarked 'there's nothing magical about 440 Hz'. Same can be said of 415, 390 or whatever.

Just checking, is that a typo? Should it be A=432? 332 would be down about a fourth, it would be E by todays standards.

Er....yes. It should be 432.

My eyes told me what I expected to see when I "checked" before posting .

The same way our ears tell us what we expect to hear........