Tuning and Tempo on a Mixed-Period Album
A chamber orchestra is recording an album pairing a 1785 piano concerto with a 1910 string quartet, and the label requires a single tuning standard. The fortepiano is strung and tuned for A=430; the modern strings are set up for A=440. Dropping the strings to 430 would require a different bridge curve, and the concertmaster warns that intonation in high positions would suffer audibly. Meanwhile the concerto's finale carries a metronome mark that yields 4 minutes 10 seconds; the conductor's preferred tempo yields 3:35. The mark appears in the soloist's late-nineteenth-century score but not in the first edition. The producer must settle both questions before the session, and the booklet writer needs a defensible statement about what 'period practice' means for this album. The recording budget allows one extra rehearsal, not a second session.
1. Advise on the tuning question and on what the decision implies for the album's claim to period practice.
Read the worked answer
Choose A=440. The strings are built for it, and one extra rehearsal cannot absorb a bridge change plus reworked high-position fingering; audible intonation problems would damage the concerto more than a ten-cent pitch difference. The fortepiano can be brought up to 440, accepting a slightly brighter, more stressed tone.
The booklet must then be honest: say that period practice here governs instrumentation, balance, and articulation, not absolute pitch. Claiming 'authentic pitch' while the strings sit at 440 would be false, and a reviewer would catch it. A defensible claim is narrower and survives scrutiny.
2. How much weight should a metronome mark that is missing from the first edition carry?
Read the worked answer
Treat it as a data point, not an instruction. Its absence from the first edition and presence in a later owner's score mean it could be an editor's or player's addition-or a genuine record of oral tradition. That uncertainty cuts both ways, so the mark cannot settle the question alone.
Weigh it against the movement's character, its phrase lengths, and the room. If 3:35 leaves articulations scrambled and the phrases sound clipped, the slower tempo is justified regardless of the mark; if 4:10 sags, the mark gains support. The booklet should say what the score shows and what was chosen, without asserting the composer's intent. Documented judgment beats a slogan.