 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2000-06-04 23:42
As far as B flat sounding best, I was under the impression that the concert pitch has varied widely over time and place. I believe that parts of Europe had concert "A" a full step different from the US during some of the 19th century, though I cannot find the source easily. So the sounds best arguement seems unlikely.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2000-06-05 13:46
Ginny!
You are absolutely right that pitch has varied a lot over time. Allow me to be very approximate since I don't have the right sources available. What we today, in Early Music terms, call French baroque pitch is A=392-400, approximately one whole step below 440. This is the pitch that the Paris opera used until around 1760. Apparently Opera Comique used a higher pitch around mid 18th century. Standard baroque pitch today, is A=415. It probably varied somewhere between 410 to 425. Standard classical pitch today is A=430 (in the US sometimes 425). At the time, depending on where you were, around A=420-435. A-435 was the standard pitch well into the 20th century. It's only in the last 70-80 decades that pitch has risen to 440 and above. In Cremona, Italy, the town of the Stradivarius family, the pitch was as high as A=460 in the 17th century. One exception in the late 19th century is the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and parts of Germany, where the pitch was as high as A=455.
So why did the Bb-clarinet become the most desired one? (As I explained earlier in a similar topic below, the B-flat clarinet was favored by the composers of the Mannheim school as being the "virtuoso" instrument, more mellow than the C and more fluid than the A and that's where the tradition started). This is a relative question. Of cause, A Bb-cl. in 425 is, to use the Mannheim terms, still more fluid than the A-cl. and more mellow than the C-cl. if all instruments have the same pitch. It all depends on what you compare with. If you make one A-clarinet in 440 and one Bb-clarinet in 415, it's going to be the same instrument. You get the point.
The pitch level on clarinets hasn't changed that much over history anyway. It's only a span over slightly more than a quarter tone and it doesn't make so much difference to the ear anyway.
Alphie
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