Negotiating the Pitch: For a Diplomatic History of A, at the Crossroads of Politics, Music, Science and Industry

Gribenski, Fanny

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-63163-9_8

Fanny Gribenski⁵

Part of the book series: The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy ((SPIRP))

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Abstract

Although commonly adopted as the point of reference for musicians in the Western world, A tuned to 440 hertz only became the standard pitch during an international conference held in London in 1939. The adoption of this norm was the result of decades of international negotiations involving a surprising mix of actors: musicians (performers and composers), instrument builders, physicists, representatives of different state ministries and broadcasting technicians. In 1885, a first international agreement on standard pitch was ratified in Vienna by several European countries, which adopted the “French pitch,” fixed at 435 hertz by France’s government in 1859. In 1939, representatives of the main European nations signed a new treaty in London, agreeing on a higher standard frequency for the note “A” that has since remained the norm for Western musical practices: 440 hertz. Although this decision involved a barely audible increase of the diapason, it revealed the spectacular empowerment of a new set of actors ruling the musical world. By demonstrating the political, technological, scientific and aesthetic contingencies underlying the construction of one of the most “natural” objects of contemporary musical performance, this chapter charts the changing maps of forces in charge of literally tuning the world.

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Notes

1.
“Peut-être depuis qu’il existe de la Musique n’a-t-on concerté deux fois sur le même ton” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Ton,” Dictionnaire de musique (Paris: V^ve Duchesne, 1768), p. 516).
2.
Bruce Haynes, A History of Performing Pitch: The Story of “A” (Lanham, Mar., and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2002). The study of Bruce Haynes partly relies on the work of British mathematician and philologist Alexander J. Ellis, who published a comprehensive and detailed history of the performing pitch as a contribution to contemporary debates related to pitch measure and regulation (it therefore needs to be read with precaution): “On the History of Musical Pitch,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 28 (March 5 and April 2, 1880): 293–336 and 400–403). These two articles have been republished in the following volume: Studies in the History of Musical Pitch: Monographs by Alexander J. Ellis and Arthur Mendel (Amsterdam: Frits Knuf, 1968), pp. 11–62.
3.
Myles W. Jackson, Harmonious Triads. Physicists, Musicians, and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2006).
4.
By using Jessica Gienow-Hecht ’s book title (Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations) in a literal sense, I mean to open the conversation on music and diplomacy to the field of sound studies.
5.
Myles W. Jackson, Harmonious Triads, p. 199.
6.
The argument of a constant rise of the pitch has been dismissed by Émile Leipp and Michèle Castellengo, “Du diapason et de sa relativité,” La Revue musicale 294 (1977): 7–10.
7.
In 1840, for instance, music scholar and critic François-Joseph Fétis denounced the “murdering of singers” (“l’assassinat des chanteurs” [“Du changement de diapason que l’on dit projeté à l’Opéra,” Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, January 23, 1840: 55).
8.
Emmanuel Hervé, “Le diapason de l’Opéra de Paris,” Musique. Images. Instruments 12 (2010): 199–200.
9.
Hervé, “Le diapason de l’Opéra de Paris”: 200–201.
10.
The commission comprised three employees of the Paris opera ( Dubois, stage manager; Bonnemer, cashier; and Kreutzer, orchestra director), as well as three members of the Conservatory ( Cherubini, director; Berton and Boieldieu, both professors), the superintendent of the Royal Chapel (Lesueur ), the director of the Royal Chapel’s Music (Päer ) and the orchestra director of the Théâtre-Italien (Grasset ) (Académie royale de musique, handwritten report by the June 21st 1824 Commission in AN, AJ/13/114).
11.
“Les membres de la commission […] ont pensé que cette amélioration pourrait dans les premiers jours, surprendre le public en le désaccoutumant à des effets trop éclatants auxquels son oreille est habituée depuis plusieurs années; mais comme ils jugent la mesure extrêmement utile, dans la vue qu’elle s’introduise sans trop de choc, et qu’elle ne puisse souffrir de la comparaison avec le diapason présentement en usage, ils sont d’avis que l’on prie S. Exc. d’interposer ses bons services pour que le diapason de l’Académie Royale de Musique ainsi rétabli, devienne en même temps celui des Théâtres lyriques royaux, de l’École Royale, et de la Chapelle” [Ibid.]).
12.
For a short biography of Lissajous, see Serge Benoit, Daniel Blouin, Jean-Yves Dupont and Gérard Emptoz, “Chronique d’une invention: le phonautographe d’Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817–1879) et les cercles parisiens de la science et de la technique,” Documents pour l’histoire des techniques 17(1) (2009): 89.
13.
Jules-Antoine Lissajous, “Note sur l’élévation progressive du diapason des orchestres depuis Louis XIV jusqu’à nos jours et sur la nécessité d’adopter un diapason normal et universel,” Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale 54(2) (1855): 293–297.
14.
On the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, see Serge Benoît, Gérard Emptoz and Denis Woronoff (eds), Encourager l’innovation en France et en Europe. Autour du bicentenaire de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’industrie nationale (Paris: CTHS, 2006). On the specific role of the Société for musical innovation, see Benoit, Blouin, Dupont and Emptoz, “Chronique d’une invention: le phonautographe.”
15.
Lissajous, “Note sur l’élévation progressive du diapason”: 294, n. 4.
16.
“I reserve myself, when we will deal with this determination, to offer a new method, based on the drawing of vibrations by the diapason itself” (“Je me réserve, lorsqu’on s’occupera de cette détermination, de proposer une méthode nouvelle, fondée sur le tracé des vibrations par le diapason lui-même,” Lissajous, “Note sur l’élévation progressive du diapason, p. 297, n. 3). One could also argue that Lissajous had commercial interests, as suggested by his denunciation of “cheap diapasons, made no-one knows where and attuned no-one knows how” (“diapasons de pacotille, fabriqués on ne sait où et réglés on ne sait comment”) in his “Note,” as well as by the strong advertisement made by Delezenne in favor of the present and future collaboration between Lissajous and instrument builder Lerebours, for the production of diapason forks tuned to the new étalon. See “Correspondance,” Le Luth français, July 5, 1856: 5. It is still unclear yet to me though if this collaboration started before or after the 1855 meeting at the Société.
17.
The necessity to discuss collectively the issue of standard pitch might explain the early gathering of various instrument makers in the same union mentioned by Constant Pierre, Les facteurs d’instruments de musique. Les luthiers et la facture instrumentale. Précis historique (Paris: Sagot, 1893) but questioned by Malou Haine, Les Facteurs d’instruments de musique à Paris au xix ^e siècle: des artisans face à l’industrialisation (Brussels: Éditions de l’Université, 1985), p. 293.
18.
Arrêté du 17 juillet 1858, Ministère d’État, Rapports et arrêtés pour l’établissement en France d’un diapason normal (Paris: Librairie impériale, 1859, p. 3, AN, F/21/768).
19.
Arrêté du 17 juillet 1858, p. 4.
20.
Arrêté du 17 juillet 1858, p. 3.
21.
“N’est-il pas désirable qu’un diapason uniforme et désormais invariable vienne ajouter à cette communauté intelligente un lien suprême et qu’un la, toujours le même, résonnant sur toute la surface du globe, avec les mêmes vibrations, facilite les relations et les rende plus harmonieuses encore?” (Arrêté du 17 juillet 1858, p. 12). This universalist ambition had already been expressed by Lissajous (see “Note sur l’élévation progressive du diapason,” p. 297) and was shared by the Société des fabricants de pianos: “In the same way science, at the beginning of this century, fixed the standard for metric measures, based on invariable elements taken from nature, isn’t it logical that the musical art finds in an instrument given by the laws of physics a sound standard with which everyone will want to conform and which will be transmitted from generation to generation?” (“[D]e même que la science, au commencement de ce siècle, a fixé l’étalon des mesures métriques, en prenant pour base des éléments invariables et puisés dans la nature même, n’est-il pas logique que l’art musical, à son tour, trouve dans un instrument donné par les lois de la physique un étalon sonore universel, auquel chacun voudra se conformer, et qui se transmettra d’âge en âge?,” Henri Hoche, “De l’unité du diapason,” Le Luth français, June 5, 1856: 3).
22.
Jackson, Harmonious Triads, p. 209.
23.
The term is used by Alexander J. Ellis to characterize the decision of the 1858 commission (“On the History of the Musical Pitch,” p. 312).
24.
Or rather 870 double vibrations, which is the way frequency was measured in France at the time.
25.
Ministère d’État, Rapports et arrêtés pour l’établissement en France d’un diapason normal, p. 33.
26.
Ken Alder, “A Revolution in Measure: The Political Economy of the Metric System in France,” in M. Norton Wise, ed., The Values of Precision (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 52.
27.
See the correspondence between Jauniac, architect of the Conservatory and the ministry of Fine Arts held in AN, F/21/768.
28.
Arrêté du 31 mai 1859 (AN, AJ/37/81).
29.
The same phenomenon is attested in other countries after their adoption of the French pitch. Over the course of the 1860s, the French pitch was introduced in Boston, where the organ of the Music Hall was especially tuned according to this standard, but “[m]eanwhile the musical instruments in use in the various orchestras were still at the high pitch, and opera troupes and other foreign musical organizations employed the same standard. Serious difficulty was experienced when the Great Organ was used in connection with an orchestra. After a time, in fact, at two separate periods, the Harvard Symphony Orchestra was furnished with instruments in accord with the organ, but apart from the concerts of this society, at theaters and elsewhere, the performers were still obliged to use instruments at the high concert pitch, which naturally caused much annoyance,” Charles R. Cross, “Historical Notes Relating to Musical Pitch in the United States,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts of Sciences 35 (1900): 453–454.
30.
Bruce Haynes, A History of Performing Pitch, p. 352.
31.
On the history of musical pitch in nineteenth-century America, see Charles R. Cross, “Historical Notes Relating to Musical Pitch in the United States.” By the time he writes, Cross considers that America is generally tuned to the French pitch.
32.
International Organization and Industrial Change. Global Governance since 1850 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 56. For a list of the topics covered by such conferences, see table 3, “European and world conferences, 1850–1914, pp. 57–59.
33.
Kaiserlich-Königliches Ministerium für Cultus und Unterricht (ed.), Beschlüsse und Protokolle der Internationalen Stimmton Conferenz in Wien 1885 (Vienna: Kaiserlich-Königlicher Schulbücher, 1885 [Bundesarchiv, Berlin, from now on BA, R/901/70190]). German archival material used in this chapter has been collected, thanks to the support of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
34.
The Austrian state followed the recommendation of the Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde that considered France as a leader in terms of pitch standardization, as expressed by the use of this revealing quote in the preparatory documentation sent ahead of the Vienna conference: “Let there be light!’ It was the voice of France” (“‘Es werde Licht!’ Es war die Stimme Frankreichs,” Exposé zu der Eingabe der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde und Genossen No 26 vom 22. Januar in Wien an das k. k. Cultus- und Unterrichtsministerium, betreffend die Herbeiführung einer einheitlichen musikalischen Normalstimmung [BA, 901/79190], p. 2).
35.
Charles Meerens, Le Diapason et la notation musicale simplifiée (Paris: Schott, 1873). An Italian version of this text was published in 1876: Il Diapason (Corista). Versione con l’aggiunta di alcune noie di Gioacchino Muzzi (Rome: G. Muzzi).
36.
“Die Strahlen dieser Sonne [der Wissenschaft] durchwärmen und durchdringen alle Disciplinen menschlichen Wissen, auch jene der Kunst. […] Statt des wissenschaftlich vorzuziehenden Diapasons jenen von 870 Schwingungen wählen, hieße eine Art Anachronismus begehen.” (Beschlüsse und Protokolle der Internationalen Stimmton Conferenz in Wien 1885, p. 16).
37.
On the relationship between the bureaucratic state, standards and commerce, see M. Norton Wise, The Values of precision, p. 222 and following.
38.
For another conception of multilateral diplomacy, see Shaeffer’s approach of international conferences developed by Noé Cornago in Chap. 7 in this volume.
39.
Charles R. Cross, “Historical Notes Relating to Musical Pitch in the United States”: 453.
40.
Deagan’ firm was created in 1880 in Saint-Louis under the name “J.C. Deagan Musical Bells Co.” In 1891, he moved to San Francisco. The firm became J.C. Deagan & Co. in 1895 and in 1897 he settled in Chicago.
41.
“The various nations [he wrote] have not been able to agree on the question of a universal pitch […]. Recognizing this unfortunate condition we have produced a new standard tone measure, the Dea-gan-ometer, the function of which is to provide an easily understood, easily accessible and irrefutable PITCH STANDARD for the musician to work from, thus eliminating all uncertainty and guesswork regarding pitch or tuning. When once used, he added, the Dea-gan-ometer will be found as indispensable to the musician as the thermometer is to the physician, the compass to the mariner or the rule or scale is to the artisan or merchant.” (The Dea-Gan-Ometer. A New Instrument for easily Ascertaining and Standardizing any Desired Pitch on a Scientific Basis (Chicago, 1916).
42.
“Why the German Pitch? A Musical Innovation of Importance to American Orchestras,” The sun, February 13, 1919, p. 6.
43.
Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 169–170.
44.
Responding to the solicitation of the Boston Peace Foundation, the subcommittee for Arts and Letters Section of the League of Nations’ International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (created in 1922) started working on the issue of standard pitch in 1926. Studies will actually mostly be led by the Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (co-founded in 1921 by France’s government and the League of Nations and based in Paris). Detailed archival material on this matter is held at the UNESCO. On the musical politics of the League of Nations, see Christiane Sibille, “La Musique à la société des nations,” Relations internationales 155(3) (2013): 89–102 and “Harmony Must Dominate the World.” Internationale Organisationen und Musik in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Bern: Quaderni di Dodis, 6, 2016), pp. 125–161.
45.
Sibille, “Harmony Must Dominate the World,” pp. 143–148.
46.
“La Sous-Commission des Lettres et des Arts […] conclut que les arrangements présentés par la Commission chargée d’établir un diapason musical uniforme, lors de la Conférence de 1858, conservent aujourd’hui toute leur valeur […]. La Sous-Commission exprime le vœu que toutes les mesures utiles au maintien intégral du diapason de 1858 soient prises par les autorités responsables.” (Société des Nations. Commission internationale de Coopération intellectuelle. Rapport présenté par M. Destrée au nom de la Sous-Commission des Lettres et des Arts, 19 July 1928 [Paris, UNESCO, C. I. C. I. / L. A. / 16, p. 9]).
47.
Suzanne Lommers, Europe—On Air. Interwar Projects for Radio Broadcasting (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012).
48.
See preparatory material held in BA, 4901/2741.
49.
W. C. Kaye, “International Standard of Musical Pitch,” Nature 3630 (1939): 905.
50.
Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, vol. 2, “The Golden Age of Wireless,” p. 92).
51.
“International Standard Musical Pitch,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 98 (1949): 76.
52.
“Standard Musical Pitch,” NBS Technical News Bulletin, August 1957: 120.
53.
“Standard Musical Pitch.”
54.
Werner Lottermoser, “Die Messung der Tonhöhe des Stimmtones a’ bei Rundfunkmusikdarbietungen,” Akustische Zeitschrift 1 (1938): 60.
55.
Johan Schot and Vincent Lagendijk, “Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years: Building Europe on Motorways and Electricity Network,” Journal of Modern European History 6(2) (2008): 196–218.
56.
Letter from Robert Dussaut to Claude Delvincourt, March 30, 1951 (AN, AJ/37/486). He underlines.
57.
“Arrêté du 6 août 1951,” AN, 20140260/16.
58.
See Michèle Castellengo and Émile Leipp, “Du diapason et de sa relativité.”
59.
ISO archives documenting the regular consultation of countries (every five years) on the issue of standard musical pitch show a constant consensus since the publication of the 1975 norm (archives of the Deutsche Institut für Normen, Berlin).
60.
“Le Congrès de Londres, en 1939, fait en cachette des musiciens, a été organisé précisément par la maison Couesnon, de connivence avec la Radio allemande (Letter from Robert Dussaut [to Claude Delvincourt], s. d. [1950], AN, AJ/37/486); “L’Institut international du son (I. I. S.) a l’honneur de vous inviter à bien vouloir venir participer à ses délibérations en vue d’une proposition pour la fixation d’un nouveau diapason français, étant donné que le diapason allemand actuellement en usage (à 440 périodes), trop élevé, soulève de nombreux mécontentements en France.” (Institut international du son. Organisme de documentation, de coordination, de centralisation et de diffusion des recherches acoustiques, and AN, AJ/37/486).
61.
See Lyndon LaRouche, “Revive Verdi’s tuning to bring back great music,” Executive Intelligence Review 15(32) (1988): 24–34.
62.
See Ulrich Kern, Forschung und Präzisionsmessung. Die Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt zwischen 1918 und 1948 (Weinheim and New York: VCH Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994); and Dieter Hoffmann, “Die Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt im Dritten Reich,” PTB Mitteilungen 122(2) (2012): 30–31.
63.
Music is indeed not only a source of diplomatic incident but also a resource during wars. See Chap. 6 by Damien Mahiet in this volume.

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Department of Musicology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Fanny Gribenski

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Center for International Studies (CERI), Sciences Po, Paris, France
Frédéric Ramel
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, Paris, France
Cécile Prévost-Thomas

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Gribenski, F. (2018). Negotiating the Pitch: For a Diplomatic History of A, at the Crossroads of Politics, Music, Science and Industry. In: Ramel, F., Prévost-Thomas, C. (eds) International Relations, Music and Diplomacy . The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63163-9_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63163-9_8
Published: 23 January 2018
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