Klarinet Archive - Posting 000806.txt from 2002/04

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Temperament
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 20:05:03 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Leeson [mailto:leeson0@-----.net]
>
> Any opera audience attending a performance of, for example, Il
> Trovatore, awaits expectantly for the tenor aria, "Di quella pira," and
> the reason for the expectation is the high C that is sung in stentorian
> fashion at the end. It's a killer. Their emotions are raised to new
> height when the tenor belts out "Alarmi!!!" and the high C floats on the
> key signature of C major with very emotional results.
>
> Unfortunately, what most people hear when they go to that opera is an
> aria in either B-natural or B-flat, depending on the age and physical
> state of the tenor. So unless someone hangs out a sign that says, "You
> have not heard a high C because the entire piece was transposed down a
> half [or a whole] step," no one except those with perfect pitch have any
> idea that their emotions were supposed to have been catastrophically
> realigned. Instead of exhaltation produced by the high C (in theory
> because of the key signature of the aria), putting the piece a half tone
> down introduces a key signature that was said to be morose and tragic in
> the 19th century.
>
> Go figure.
>
Having little live performance opera-going experience, I have no way to know
how true it is that "most" or at least a great many performances of "Di
quella pira" are performed lower that written. And I wouldn't even try to
argue in favor of the correspondence of specific emotional meanings to
specific keys. But this may not have been a good anecdote against such
correspondence. When you transpose a single part of a larger piece (an
operatic aria or a movement of a concerto) you muck up the key relationships
around it. Unless the entire performance of Il Trovatore is transposed,
somewhere there will be two key relationships - one at the beginning of the
aria and one at the end of it, probably - where anyone who knows the opera
well and is paying attention will be aware of what is being done - perfect
pitch or the lack of it notwithstanding.

BTW, do we have any firm knowledge of the pitch of 'A' in Vienna at the end
of the 18th century?

Karl Krelove

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