Tuning forks

These tuning forks represent the history of musical tuning during the 19th Century. 

In 1700  there was great variance in the pitch which was used to tune musical instruments, with A above middle C  ranging from 374 to 567. Handel’s tuning fork gives a pitch of 422.5 and Mozart’s piano was tuned to 421.6.

There were several attempts to regularise this, one of which was set by the London Philharmonic Society using a pitch of 452. In the late 19th Century Britain adopted the New Philharmonic pitch of 439. However, military bands and organs remained at 452 which meant that they could not perform with other musical ensembles. The Kneller Hall tuning forks date from this period, with A set to 452 and Bb (often used by bands in preference to A) to 479.3. In 1939, pitch was set to 440 at an International Conference.