Image: Shutterstock The first time Ivan Yanakiev heard an instrument tuned to 432 Hertz, he says, it was like he’d heard God speak. In the men’s dressing room at the Musical Drama Theatre Konstantin Kisimov in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, Yanakiev, a young, National Academy-schooled conductor, had his friend, Velimir, tune his cello down eight Hz from the standard A=440Hz. They were arranging an experiment. Velimir, “a skilled cellist,” Yanakiev told me, started in on the prelude to Bach’s “Cello Suite No. 1 in G major.” “So, la, si, so, si so, si, so/ So, la, si, so, si, so, si, so,” Yanakiev sings to illustrate. It’s one of the most often performed and well known pieces by Bach, but in that backroom rendition, transposed not even […] Read More
