X. RIEHL
TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING
The North German pitch differs in general from the South German--I mean
the orchestral pitch.
The Viennese pitch is the highest in Germany. They go still higher,
however, in St. Petersburg; the pitch in which they play on the Neva is
the highest in the whole of Europe. The climax of the European
concert-pitch of the present day may be represented in its three
principal degrees by the orchestral tone of the three capitals--Paris,
Vienna, St. Petersburg--ascending from the lowest pitch to the highest.
There is no German concert-pitch, but there are dozens of different
German concert-pitches--a Viennese, a Berlin, a Dresden, a Frankfurt
pitch, etc., so that in the light of such distinctions even the
above-mentioned division into northern and southern tone appears like a
very general hypothesis. The Parisian pitch and the French pitch, on the
contrary, are accepted without caviling as synonymous.[16] Italy, on the
other hand, is also without a uniform pitch; as early as a hundred years
ago a distinction was made there between the Roman, the Venetian, the
Lombard pitch, ascending from the lower to the higher. It may therefore
be said that in Rome they play approximately in the Parisian pitch, in
upper Italy in the Viennese and St. Petersburg pitch. I am not indulging
in any political metaphors, but in sober musical truth.
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