Kevin Sutton ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Andrys says:
>
>>It's no accident that most successful conductors have it - it does not
>>hurt them nor do they use it for giving pitches.  And I don't at all think
>>you're "born with" it -- I think it's experience matching sounds to places
>>on an instrumnent and to tones named for you.
>
>Where have YOU been Andrys.  There is no evidence to say that MOST
>successful conductors have perfect pitch.  Many do not.

Including some of the very greatest of all.  There is a story of the BPO
playing a trick on Furtwaengler during a rehearsal on his birthday: they
all started the Eroica in E major.

Eventually IIRC they broke up laughing and explained the reason.  WF said
he thought there was *something* not quite right, but couldn' put his
finger on it.

OTOH the great Jascha Horenstein did have perfect pitch and once remarked
that he couldn't bear to listen to Furtwaengler's 1944 Eroica, in his (and
IMHO) the greatest performance on record, because it was not available ina
transfer at the proper pitch.

Deryk Barker
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