Musical Offerings ⦁ 2024 ⦁ Volume 15 ⦁ Number 1 25 Figure 1. Syntonic vs. Pythagorean tuning.6 The foundation of intonation for a string instrument is establishing a tuning note. In Leopold Mozart’s Essay on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, Mozart notes that the violin is usually tuned with the “A-string first, others [tune] the D” string.7 Mozart also emphasizes that no matter which string a player tunes first, he or she must try to tune with exact precision. After the A-string (or D-string) is played, the other strings are tuned according to this pitch. Today, an A4 is the pitch that the violins play and tune first, which is set to 440 hertz. In Baroque music, A4 was known as 415 hertz; however, it was difficult in those days to distinguish the exact hertz value and make this number universal for every string player.8 In addition to the diverse pitch standard, there was variability of tuning for different genres and/or settings of music. For example, in France, there were two categories of tuning, one for opera music and the other for chamber music, known as ton d’Opéra and ton de la Cambre du Roy, respectively. Ton d’Opéra was established to be 404 to 409 hertz, and ton de la Cambre du Roy was roughly 392 hertz.9 This distinction between the two tunings for different musical functions was reliant also upon the other instruments with which the string instruments were playing. Some wind instruments could only be tuned to a certain frequency; therefore, string players might have been led to tune to specific instruments, such as the recorder.10 The frequency for the tuning note of the violin and other string instruments was not uniform 6 Barbieri, 71. 7 Mozart, 859. 8 Cyr, 139–140. 9 Cyr, 141–142. 10 Cyr, 142.
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