The History of Standard Tuning: Who Standardized it, Why, and When?

The A note changed over the centuries due to concert hall architecture, instrument innovations, and the globalization of Western music.

Violin strings are typically tuned by setting the A string to 440 Hz. It’s a scientific metric applied to a tool of art, which in itself might seem odd. But just like pointillism was an optical tool used by Impressionistic painters, and physiology is essential to dancers, players of fine violins as well as all other instrumentalists need to be in tune. The hertz (Hz) unit of frequency, which measures the traveling wave (oscillation) of air pressure is one way to ensure a violin concerto in Vienna sounds the same in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, and everywhere else.

But who set that standard? When? Why? The history is murky – violinmakers didn’t play a role, as violins, violas, and cellos are fairly adaptable to all circumstances – but it has a parallel in time zones and cross-continental railroad travel that began in the 19th century.

Prior to the 19th century time varied from village to village and country to country. But with the railroads, it became more important to have coordinated schedules for arrivals and departures. This is when standardized time zones came to be.

The analogy to musical standard tuning finds its forensics in old pipe organs and old tuning forks. Organs in Germany that were built prior to 1600 had the A above the middle C varying between 377 Hz to 567 Hz, roughly a half note above and below the current 440 Hz standard.

What changed this was the rise of the star composer-musicians Handel and Mozart, who themselves and their scores traveled farther than their predecessors in the 17th and 18th centuries. They favored a standard pitch of about 422-423 Hz. This was followed by improved building methods of concert halls that satisfied larger audiences in the 19th century, which coincided with the development of new and better instruments. To achieve “high, brilliant pitches at climaxes” (according to Lynn Cavanagh, A brief history of the establishment of international standard pitch a=440 hertz), which worked better in these bigger venues, wind and stringed instruments were built to a higher pitch standard.

It took the French to codify this, according to Cavanagh. “In 1859, a French government commission made A=435 Hz law in that country,” she writes. Still, British musicians didn’t exactly comply, nor did piano makers in North America, as they argued that room temperature rendered the French standard irrelevant.

Again, it was a technology, radio broadcasting, which drove an international agreement in 1939. Europe was in catastrophic turmoil during that period, so it’s interesting to note that consensus on the pitch of the A was at least achieved then. Today, it’s possible to get the standard pitch for the violin’s G, D, A, and E notes online and through phone apps.

Given all that happened in Europe in the 20th century, consider how some of those centuries-old German, French, British and other pipe organs may well hold a stubborn adherence to different, non-standard tuning. They might not fit musical tones a modern world but they give us a glimpse of what musical pitch was long ago.

Spruce Wood and the Acoustics of Violins

Spruce is a vital raw component of violins. A product of nature, there is great variability that skilled violinmakers understand how to control.

There are countless variables that affect the quality of music created by a skilled violinist and his or her violin. It is the talent, skill, and artistry of the violinist that seems most important. But how the violin is made, and of what materials, matter a great deal as well.

The great names in European violin making – Antonio Stradivari of course, but also Maggini, Stainer, Ruggieri, Amati, Guarneri, and Klotz come to mind – largely had one thing in common when crafting the fine violins produced in their shops: the wood used to craft their instruments. Therefore those woods defined the instrument from the beginning. It was that spruce and maple wood were the most available material to work with.

The argument that these two types of wood, which make up the bulk of any fine instrument, are the be-all to end-all in violin making is almost certainly flawed. The design and crafting of the instrument, as well as how they are played, may have conformed to the natural strengths of spruce and maple. If all a violinmaker had available in northern Italy was birch and oak, might violins (as well as fine cellos, and violas, etc.) look a bit different and sound a bit different – and be considered the norm?

That last question cannot really be answered. Suffice it to say that maple is revered for the soundpost, and spruce (in particular, European spruce or Picea abies) for the soundboard of body of the violin. In technical terms, the highest-grade violin spruce has a low density and what’s described as “a very high specific modulus of elasticity.” This amounts to “a small angle of microfibrils in cell walls, combined with a structure with a majority of axial cells, resulting in a high axial-to-shear and axial-to-transverse anisotropy (different properties that go in opposite directions),” according to a summary of research reported in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (“Acoustical properties of wood in string instruments soundboards and tuned idiophones: Biological and cultural diversity,” Iris Brémaud, Vol. 131, January 2012). This anisotropy affects the soundboard (spruce) vibration modes in ways that produce the sound we consider to be most desirable.

The woods used by Stradivari, et al. in the 15th century happened to have had a climate element to them: decades of colder temperatures in Italy, Switzerland and Germany led to slower growth of the spruce trees. In particular, the woods used in Cremonese violins are believed to have superior tonal expressiveness and projection, thanks to the density of the cold-grown spruce trees. It’s the wood’s vibrational efficacy and the effective production of sound that distinguish this rare and highly valued family of violins from others.

There are specialists who know how to identify old spruce trees that will make good violins (too many branches equal too many knots, for example). Finding the right trees is merely the starting point – and to be clear, those trees might be 400 years old – in the long process of creating the music that great violins and violinists give to the world.

W.E Hill & Sons: A Legacy of Quality and Vision

Very few fine stringed instrument shops master so much of what musicians need to produce fine music – and what collectors need to establish value.

Some people know W.E. Hill & Sons for their fine violin bows. Others for the fine cellos and violins the firm made during the late 19th and most of the 20th century. Auctioneers tout the firm for its restoration work and scholarship on the Stradivarius and Guarneri luthier families. And in the realm of fine violin cases, there really is no comparison to W.E. Hill & Sons for intricate craftsmanship and beauty.

The fact that very different perspectives of fine stringed instruments – from the players to collectors and scholars – all find ways to appreciate, respect and even revere the work of this firm speaks volumes. They were skilled with levels of expertise and breadth that is rarely found under one roof.
To illustrate the attention to detail, this shop reportedly made its own tools. It’s what enabled them to perform at the top of their game in all other respects, in particular at bow making. Consider how the market values W.E. Hill & Sons bows at recent auctions: In 2017 and 2018, viola, cello and violin bows have sold for between $1,298 and $18,788 (US). Prices fetched at auction for instruments were as high as $54,000 (cello), $26,400 (violin), $23,600 (violin), $16,851 (violin), and $16,571 (violin). Auction houses handling the maker’s work include Tarisio, Freeman’s Auctions, Bonhams, Skinner, and Ingles & Hayday.

Based in London on the fashionable New Bond Street, the violinmaker was established in 1887, the height of the Victorian era, a time when the English fine stringed instruments were thought to have surpassed the workmanship of those made in France.

This was also a time when elaborate, ornate violin cases were made by the Hill organization, one of which was sold at auction in 2016 for $17,220. This particular case was one of the firm’s fabled “12 Apostles,” so named because only a dozen were made over an eight-year period (1887-1895), and was commissioned to house a Stradivarius. Cases of this exceptional vintage were inlaid with exotic woods in music motives, with brass hardware, and lined with fine paper

The violinmaker was also acclaimed for its work with damaged instruments, as well as their mastery at identification and authentication of violins, cellos, and bows. The firm handled at least three Stradivariuses (the Alard, the Messiah, and the Lipinski).

The violin shop’s legacy was honored with a special exhibit at the Bate Collection at the University of Oxford of W.E. Hill & Sons bows in 2016. Titled “Fiddle Sticks, the Story of Bow Making at Hills Violin Experts,” it included 17 bows from the firm that were made over a period of 75 years. Bow making tools and moulds, a recreated workshop, plus a short film, biographies of acclaimed luthiers in Hill’s employ and several photographs were part of the exhibit as well.

The firm was dissolved in 1992, capping off more than a century of fine craftsmanship, investigative authentication, and restoration work. Today, almost everything W.E. Hill & Sons touched carries great respect – and value.

Bow Making Port Townsend: The Mirecourt of the United States

A tiny fishing village on Washington’s Puget Sound is the place where fine stringed instruments and instrumentalists find their essential bow.

Violins, violas and cellos mostly get all the attention. They’re the principle instruments in the orchestra; they are played by the most recognized of string musicians (rare exception: Yo-Yo Ma and his cello). When you see a violinist traveling in an airport, the case shape gives away the nature of the contents, but that shape says nothing about the accompanying bow. A bow for all stringed instruments is commonly considered an appendage, a supporting player at best.

But that’s to the unaware, untrained, non-musician. Accomplished violinists, living and gone, the likes of Joshua Bell, Lindsey Stirling, Fritz Kreisler, Giuseppe Tartini, Antonio Vivaldi, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Hilary Hahn, and Leila Josefowicz, know that the bow is as essential as the instrument itself. Which is why the bow makers of Port Townsend, Washington, are so important among contemporary musicians and music lovers. But it isn’t just violin bows that are sought after. Fine cello bows and viola bows are always in demand.

Those bow makers include Kanestrom Bows, a shop run by Norwegian native Ole Kanestrom, who was preceded by Charles Espey and Paul Martin Siefried. A young up-and-comer is Cody Kowalski, who apprenticed under Espey and has already won international medals for his craftsmanship. Siefried learned his craft in his native Los Angeles but moved to Port Townsend in 1991, attracted by the natural seashore environment.

The fine violin bows crafted in Port Townsend might sell for upwards of $10,000, the product of 60 hours of work (give or take). Bows are made of increasingly rare pernambuco, which is sourced from trees that grow only in the coastal forests of Brazil. The laws of economics tell us that the more rare a supply of anything, the higher the price (assuming that thing is of valuable utility, which a bow most certainly is). But those same laws suggest that if something fetches a high price, it will attract other makers who will increase the supply and bring down the price.

A price drop is not likely to happen anytime soon. These are not easy to make, they cannot be made of such quality by machines, and the dedication to this craft – as seen in the Port Townsend archetiers (what bow makers are called, the counterpart to violin makers, who are called luthiers).

That craft starts with a conversation between archetier and the violin player (cello, viola, and viola da gamba players as well). This is because a bow is very personal, and where one bow might work with the style and artistry of one player it may not for another; a bow that can manage through a bright glissando might be less able to produce the sound expected in a sonorous, low-register passage. Characteristics that matter are balance, feel, and weight. The strings, made of horsehair, matter as well, but those will be replaced many times over the long life of the bow.

So why Port Townsend? Bowmakers and violinmakers in Mirecourt established themselves in the northeastern French city as early as 1629 in part due to the guild system of master craftsmen and their apprenticeships. Port Townsend also has its experts – Kanestrom, Espey, Siefried, and Kowalski – who draw both customers and apprentices. In a global supply system of pernambuco, ebony and silver (for the bow’s frog), and horsehair, location is less important than the presence of master teachers.

Port Townsend is also an artists’ enclave, which certainly contributes to its place in crafting this essential part of stringed instruments. After all, doesn’t the end result of the artisan’s work, great music, make for a better archetier?

The 12 Apostles Violin Cases by W.E. Hill and Sons

They don’t make the music but ensure the instrument gets to its audiences. This London violinmaker created some of the most beautiful cases ever made.

When is a package or container almost as valued as its contents? One imagines the Fabergé eggs as an incomparable embodiment and celebration of the exterior. On a much grander scale, some of the great concert halls of the world - the Culture and Congress Centre Concert Hall in Lucerne, the Boston Symphony Hall, Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, and the Christchurch Town Hall Auditorium (New Zealand) come to mind - are a type of packaging for the impressive music created within their walls.

There are violin cases that are or were made to approximate the beauty and craftsmanship of the fine violins held inside. Before the advent of scientifically driven case details (humidity gauges and the like), there were the 12 Apostles Violin Cases made by the W.E. Hill & Sons shop in London. As the name implies, there were only a dozen made (on New Bond Street, noticeably in the neighborhood of the Fabergé shop), perhaps because few could afford the opulence and fine workmanship that went into building these cases.

Lest anyone question the value of a case, which produces no music at all, consider the fact that one of the 12 Apostles sold at auction in 2016 for $17,220.

The Hill family violin shop, led by founder Willam Ebsworth Hill (1817-1895) existed for 105 years (1887-1992), but actually drew from a history of luthiers stretching back to Hill’s great grandfather. The firm made both violins and cellos, but was respected for its work in repairs, bows, fittings, identification and authentication, and ultimately, for fine case making.

The prized 12 Apostles were limited because of the extravagant time required to make them. The violin shop’s own brochure floridly described them: “In our opinion, the case containing so fine a work of art as a good violin should be pleasing and indeed beautiful....we endeavor, by the use of choice wood, and ornamental inlaid bordering, and the highest quality workmanship throughout, to make them as beautiful as possible, and receptacles worthy of fine violins.”

That workmanship included handmade locks and flush-bolts, a lined button (with cork) made to hold the bow, and intricate patterns of inlaid wood in musical motifs. All 12 are different - at least one case has its own covering of leather, a case over a case - and several have held violins by the fabled violinmaker, Antonio Stradivarius.

Such rich detailing on a case is not out of place, considering the time and place of the most accomplished violin, viola, and cello players of the day. Great concerts were attended by the higher echelons of society of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Higher still were the courts and palaces where the most sought after musicians of the Victorian era - can you say Paganini? - would be hired to entertain private audiences. The etiquette of that time was excruciatingly precise; the arrival of the musician must clearly have been an observed and choreographed moment. To be dressed in the finest of clothes might also require an exquisite violin case.

Fine instrument cases, clearly the work of artists, do not have a catalogue raisonné as with the work of acclaimed visual artists. So the precise whereabouts of all of Hill’s 12 Apostles is not clear (based on an Internet search). The 2016 auction price might have raised the profile of this rarified group, sufficiently so such that any that are lost in an attic or orchestra hall storage room might turn up in the future.

Carl Frederick Becker: The Dean of American Violinmaking

The 17th and 18th centuries produced the Stradivariuses. But the 20th and 21st centuries had the Chicago violinmaker Carl Fredrick Becker.

Chicago’s Fine Arts Building, a gem of the Windy City just steps from Symphony Center and the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is home to Carl Becker & Son. The firm now employs a fifth generation in the Becker family, which makes fine violins, violas, and cellos.

But perhaps best known among the Becker family is Carl Frederick Becker (1919-2013), who was the second generation in the family to become a violinmaker. His father, Carl G. Becker, was also a violinmaker (and who also crafted cellos) in the employ of William Lewis & Son in Chicago. But while the two worked side by side for more than 20 years (1948-1968), they didn’t open their own shop under the Becker family name until 1968, just seven years before the elder Becker died. Together, they made more than 500 instruments.

Even though Carl Becker Jr. only made 13 instruments by himself, he was renowned among violinmakers and stringed instrument players for his ability to repair and restore violins. He is famously credited for having restored the “Lady Blunt” Stradivarius, using a method of applying light pressure and tiny bit of room temperature water to a little dimple in the middle of the violin back.

Becker influenced several notable modern violinmakers who trained with him before his death in 2013, including Peter Beare, Charles Rufino, Samuel Zygmuntowicz and Eric Benning.

“He made these little mini brass bars that would put a very light pressure on the dent, pushing it out. He would dampen it very lightly with water and apply the tiniest bit of pressure,” says Charles Rufino, a New York luthier who spoke to The Violinist upon Becker’s death in 2013. “He didn't have to heat it or do any kind of destructive or threatening thing. This was the way he worked, all the time."

Over his 76-year career, Becker developed a sense of the relationship between the human musician and the “living” instrument. Ruffino observed that “Carl’s entire focus was: make it play great, and make it comfortable for the musician,” he says. “There’s an awful lot of arcane knowledge that goes into making an instrument comfortable.”

Becker’s great nephew, violinmaker Eric Benning, described his training with Becker as marked with a quality of exactitude. “One day I tried to assure him by saying, ‘I’ll be careful.’ Carl stopped me and said, ‘I don’t want you to be careful. I want you to be sure.’ There’s a world of difference between the two,” said Benning. “It was a vital perspective to share at that moment. I’m always mindful of the differentiation.”

Another tenet of Becker’s approach was to treat a violin repair as an engineering project. He mastered the distribution of tension by manipulating the pressure of the strings, changing neck angles, altering specific points about the fingerboard and adjusting the sound post and bridge.

The Becker family line of musicians and instrument makers dates back to Carl Jr.’s grand parents, who lost their first violin shop violin shop in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Today, children and grandchildren of Carl Becker Jr. work in the Fine Arts Building shop, some as luthiers, others in the business administration aspects of the firm.

Why Mirecourt, France is the Bow Making Capital of the World

The discovery of the New World brought prosperous trade in Brazillian Pernambuco wood to Miracourt - establishing a legacy of fine bowmaking

Mirecourt, France is famous for two things: Violin and stringed instrument bow making, and the making of fine lace. That fact is as true today as it was in the 16th century.

But while Mirecourt’s history and the pedigree of its violin bows speak of refinement in the royal courts of European royalty and the aristocracy, it’s not without a little cross-Atlantic controversy. This is due to the source of the most prized basic material used in making the finest bows by the greatest Mirecourt bowmakers (“archetiers” as they are called). That material is Pernambuco wood.

When Portuguese explorers “discovered” Brazil in 1500, they immediately recognized the value of the land’s uniquely beautiful trees, particularly along its coasts. A rich degree of commerce developed, felling the various Brazilwoods and shipping them to the Old World. By 1555 the French admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon sought to establish a colony there in part to harvest and import the wood.

That was unsuccessful, but trade between Brazil and Europe in these woods thrived. This time period coincides with the rise of skilled and renowned archetiers and luthiers (violin makers) in Mirecourt. The city was a mercantilist center, connected to the rapidly expanding world, trading in products, ideas and culture.

Musical instrument craftsmanship began to diversify with increasing wealth, such that by the 18th century bow makers began to hone their craft of producing violin bows. Mirecourt’s history includes famous architiers of the era: Dominique Peccatte, Emile Francois Ouchard, Eugene Sartory and Victor Fétique. Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, was one of Miracourt’s most renowned violin makers.

The bows from some of these archetiers remain in use today, some fetching prices as high as $45,000 at auction and are often offered for sale at high-end violin shops. The Pernambuco supply is greatly restricted today due to overharvesting, so other woods are now used - making the old masters’ bows even greater in value.

Today, almost 500 years later, Mirecourt remains the bowmaking capital of the world. While World Wars One and Two created great hardships - 18 workshops employing almost 700 people in 1925 had disappeared by 1945 - the creation of the National School of Lutherie in the 1970s in Mirecourt revived the professions of bowmakers, violinmakers, and even guitar and mandolin makers.

The city today has a museum dedicated to the history of violin making (Musée de la lutherie et de l'archèterie française), and what’s known as the national violin making high school named for Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (Ecole Nationale de Lutherie Lycee Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume). Students at the school spend five years earning violin making technical diplomas, art trade degrees, and professional aptitude degrees. At least 24 hours per week are spent on benches making instruments and bows; the school focus is on violins, violas, cellos, double bass and viols.

Just as Mirecourt’s fine French lace will always be appreciated - and worn by many more than the aristocracy - so too are the bows and stringed instruments made today in this lovely French city.