Congratulations to our 440th member!

Congratulations to our 440th member! DrGonzo: A gift is waiting in your mailbox.

So why on earth celebrating the 440th member? Well, it is simply because 440 is the standard for the diapason.

The story of the diapason is more vivid and exciting than most musicians realize.

Before the 18th Century, there was no standardized diapason as we have today, causing variations not only between countries but also within the same city. A cathedral organ could be five semitones lower than the pianoforte nearby. In other words, the A produced by the organ had the same frequency as the E on the pianoforte!

There was also a tendency for diapason levels to rise, and became known as "pitch inflation". Instruments competed against each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals. A craftsman could produce an instrument with a higher diapason than that made by the same craftsmen the year earlier.

But eventually some musicians had enough. The diapason levels had become so high that singers were experiencing severe throat strain and lutenists and viol players were complaining of snapped strings! Largely due to their protests, the French government passed a law in order to avoid chaos in the musical world. The law set the A above middle C at 435 Hz. It was the forerunner to the standard used today, A=440 Hz.

In order to achieve as authentic sound as possible for instruments from a different diapason period, modern ensembles of early music have agreed on a standard of A=415 Hz. This is the same diapason as is used in the Pianoteq pianoforte and harpsichord add-ons.

Warm regards from
the MODARTT team.