n the conception of natural
beauty and in the fundamental forms of musical expression which happen
to prevail for the time being. I will speak, therefore, of these
fundamental forms and not of musical works of art, for by means of what
one might call, by way of comparison, musical natural beauty, by means
of the prototypes of the high or low tones, of tone-color, of time, of
rhythm, etc., we can test most clearly the unconscious transformation
of the musical ear in contrast to the conscious development of artistic
taste.

Let us compare the orchestral pitch of the eighteenth with that of the
nineteenth century. As the peoples of Europe became more passionate and
agitated in public and in private life, and as our whole intellectual
life rose to a higher level, our orchestral tone was keyed up higher. In
1739 Euler reckoned the vibrations of the great eight-foot C to be one
hundred and eighteen to the second. In 1776, Marpurg, for the same tone,
gives one hundred and twenty-five vibrations. Chladni, in the year 1802,
calculated its vibrations as a hundred and twenty-eight, twenty years
later as a hundred and thirty-six to a hundred and thirty-eight to the
second. And since then we have, no doubt, gone noticeably higher!

We find, then, that the tone has risen most emphatically since the
appearance of the Romanticists; in the days of the Classical School it
remained the same for the greatest length of time. The latter was the
period of the most moderate artistic expression. At present, on the
contrary, we thirst for shriller and shriller tones, higher and higher
singing. Even though every violin treble-string snaps and every singer's
throat becomes exhausted before its time, we go on forcing the tone
higher from decade to decade.

The entirely reversed relation of church-pitch to concert-pitch, which
has taken place in the course of time, appears noteworthy in this
connection. Even in the eighteenth century, church-pitch was much higher
than concert-pitch, and surely for a reason far deeper than the mere
wish to save tin on the organ pipes. For the old masters used church
music for the portrayal of strong emotions, and on this account they
needed the shriller pitch. Bach is much more shrilly and
characteristically dramatic in his church cantatas than contemporary
masters of Italian opera. Chamber and theatrical music, for which the
lower, milder, more agreeable orchestral tone was chosen, was played,
for the most part,