Johann nepomuk maelzel biography of donald

  • They were both born in Germany, Winkel in Lippstadt and Mälzel in Regensburg, in the late 1700s.
  • He was the son of an organ builder, and his training was in music, and has the air of a bit of a wheeler-dealer.
  • Johann Nepomuk Maelzel [or Mälzel] best known for manufacturing a metronome and several music automatons, and displaying a fraudulent chess machine which he.

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    The Metronome Revolution

    In any musical culture there is an exciting turning point that occurs when music as a professional industry starts to emerge. Musicians start to play other musicians’ music, rather than just their own: composers are writing music down for people in the future (or in other countries) to play, multiple performances of major new works are being produced and interesting cultural exchanges occur. This can lead to fundamental shifts in the standardisation of instrument technologies and of music notation to enable disparate musicians to collaborate and understand each other.

    When this emerged in Europe it would have been a heady and exciting time, but as you move away from the composer-performer and into the writer-composer a simple but important problem arises: Tempo. If I write a work and share it with you you (via horse and carriage, or perhaps printed and in a foreign bookshop, or jotted down in a notebook to share with a friend) how fast do you play i

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    JOHANN NEPOMUK MAELZEL 

    (b.Regensburg 15 Aug.1772; d.at sea, 21 Jul. 1838)


    was the son of a Regensburg organ builder who received a thorough musical education and, like Beethoven, moved to Vienna in 1792, in beställning to man a living there as a piano performer and teacher. Besides music, however, he also had a great mechanical inclination that soon 'led him to exchange the music room for the workshop' (Thayer 543). In 1807, he sold his first 'Panharmonicon' in Paris, while he is reported as having been hired by the Viennese Imperial court to work on a 'mechancial' project and as having been assigned rooms in Schoenbrunn, in 1809. Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Vienna and his 'taking up residence' in Schoenbrunn forced Maelzel to look for another kurs. He funnen it in Stein's piano factory (Stein was Nanette Streicher's brother). In 1812, he worked there on a 'new and improved' panharmonicon. We may now move to:

     

    BEETHOVEN, MAELZEL AND THE 

    'CREATI
  • johann nepomuk maelzel biography of donald

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    My brother framed a drawing of the young Schubert for his father-in-law, a German-born lover of Germanic music. I asked if the composer was wearing his trademark glasses, which I’ve always thought resembled an instrument of torture. No, this was a rendering of Schubert at age fourteen, sans specs. Ken asked if I knew that the designer of Schubert’s glasses also built an ear trumpet for Beethoven and invented the metronome -- a wonderful musical convergence and all news to me.

    The inventor in question had a name almost as wondrous: Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, who embodied equal parts engineer, entrepreneur and conman. I hope someone writes his life but “metronome” had stopped me. It’s one of those catalytic words that sets off a chain of associative reactions, in this case sending me back half a century to my Uncle Richard and Aunt Nancy’s basement – black and white linoleum, stacks of National Geographic, a rattan basket beneath the laundry