Previn Concerto

Horace Greeley hgreeley@leland.Stanford.EDU
Mon, 21 Sep 1998 17:39:24 -0700


Roger,

At 02:04 PM 9/21/1998 -0600, you wrote:
>         But I have heard that Previn likes his piano at A441, have also
>picked it up on some of his early recordings. the piano is a little sharp
>of the Orchesra???? Go figure.

The LA Phil pianos have been at (at least) 442 for at least 20 years.  Ditto,
most of the other major halls in LA.

In re: the piano being sharp to the orchestra.  Which recordings?  The London
ones are all at a minimum (average) pitch of 442, but the oboes are
consistently
flat, the flutes mostly so, the clarinets flat in the low registers while
sharp
in the higher ones, the bassoons - well, they're bassoons, they're sharp,
etc for 
the other instruments.

The ones from LA during his tenure were recorded at Royce Hall at UCLA,
and, in that venue,
the air conditioning has to be shut off during actual recording (it was not
designed
as a recording studio).  In this latter case, anything remotely resembling
"in tune"
playing on those recordings has more to do with the quality of the LA band
than anything else


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