(from Gk. metron: ‘a measure’ and nomos: ‘law’; Fr. métronome; Ger. Metronom, Taktmesser; It. metronomo).
An apparatus for establishing musical tempo. More specifically, it is the clockwork-driven double-pendulum device perhaps invented about 1812 by Diederich Nikolaus Winkel but refined and patented by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel in 1815. The name seems to have entered the English and French languages specifically on Maelzel’s patents filed in London and Paris; and there is no apparent evidence of its earlier use in any European language.
2. The ‘chronomètre’ and other pendulum time-keepers.
3. The metronome and other clockwork devices.
4. Electric and electronic devices.
5. Attitudes to the metronome and to metronome numbers.
DAVID FALLOWS
Traditionally the metronome has had two main purposes, which should be considered quite separately.
Nearly all the main developments have been driven by the need for composers and editors to fix the tempo they considered appropriate for a particular work (but see Tempo and expression marks, §4). This began to seem necessary for the first time in the late 17th century, when the music of different nationalities evolved markedly different styles and performance conventions but was internationally available. Thus Etienne Loulié (1696) justified his chronomètre – the earliest calibrated pendulum for music – by stating with heavy sarcasm that it was of no use to those who knew both French and foreign music intimately, to those who considered only music in the style of Lully to be worth performing, or to those who felt that it did not matter at what speed a work was performed; and he asserted that a composer had managed to send works to Italy with considerable success by attaching such arithmetical tempo indications to them. The need was felt even more strongly at the end of the 18th century when music moved away from the Tempo giusto that had hitherto governed most music in any particular tradition. The years around 1700 and shortly after 1800 therefore produced the main advances in the history of musical time-keepers. But it may well be true that the metronome would never have become ubiquitous without Beethoven’s brief flirtation with it, resulting from his relatively short friendship with Maelzel; this is so even though Beethoven’s markings for his own works have often been ignored or assumed to be wrong. Many would still subscribe to Rousseau’s view (1768) that the best metronome for these purposes is a sufficiently sensitive musician who has studied the music carefully.
On this practice there have been marked trends of approval and disapproval, with many fine teachers asserting that it is antimusical and promotes only wooden performance. The earliest writer to suggest such a device was Thomas Mace (1676), who proposed a bullet ‘or any Round Piece, or what weighty thing you please, to the weight of half a Pound, or a Pound, (more or less)’ suspended from the ceiling. He pointed out that the shorter string will have a quicker motion and that ‘therefore a Long String is Best to Practice with, at first’. Mace was particularly concerned with the habit of changing speed as the music became more complex, as in a set of variations, something that can still be heard in the performances of many first-rate musicians. Related to this use is the practice of taking a technically difficult piece, or more particularly an exercise, at various different tempos as regulated by a metronome. Czerny has exercises to be taken at crotchet = 60 and then by gradual increments up to crotchet = 120; and several teachers have advocated practising a work at speeds faster and slower than seem musically correct (and therefore necessarily requiring a metronome to keep them steady) in order to produce more relaxed and controlled playing at a musical tempo. In 1804 J.F. Reichardt observed that even the finest musicians had been unable to play more than a few bars against the clockwork time-keeper devised by J.-A.-C. Charles (see §3); and other writers (among them Mersenne, 1636–7) had similarly implied a preference for flexible tempo.
In the 20th century two further uses have brought with them the need for more sophisticated and adaptable mechanisms.
Film composers must almost invariably calculate their music to a fully edited film. Advertising jingles must be judged to a specific ‘slot’ measured in seconds. In both cases absolute precision is clearly essential, even though the advent of digital recording makes it easy to adjust the length of recorded material. The recording of a commercial lyric in several superimposed layers is often done against a metronomic pulse (normally transferred through earphones) rather than against a recording of the previously recorded track or tracks: obviously, if the first recorded track is in any way metrically irregular the synchronization of further tracks will be extremely difficult. Stockhausen’s Gruppen (1955–7), for three orchestras, calls for 12 different tempos evenly distributed between crotchet = 60 and crotchet = 120: only three of his 12 tempos appear on the traditional metronome. Examples of this kind of use could be multiplied.
A precise documentation of tempos can help define the style or characteristics of a particular performer or conductor. This can be hard to exploit with any great rigour, if only because it is rarely possible to define any single movement with a single metronome mark.
Finally, the metronome considered largely as an objet trouvé (with a heavy inbuilt symbolism) appears as a musical instrument in its own right. Examples include the opening of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole (1907–9), the third movement (‘Cloche-pied au flic’) of Villa-Lobos’s Suite sugestiva (1929) and Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (1962) for 100 metronomes.
At the ends of the long multi-section works in his Polyhymnia caduceatrix (1619) and his Puericinium (1621) Michael Praetorius gave their length in tempora; and in his Syntagma musicum (iii, 88) he stated that 160 tempora would last a quarter of an hour. This tempo (minim = 42·5) seems improbably slow; but evidently for him and his contemporaries the tempus was at least thought not to vary significantly. Similarly Johannes Vetulus de Anagnia 250 years earlier could say that the brevis in a trecento novenaria lasted 2½ seconds (if Gullo, 1964, has interpreted him correctly, though see Segerman, 1996). So it is perhaps not surprising that Galileo Galilei’s investigations into the workings of a pendulum had no immediate impact on music, whereas they were quickly used in medicine for calculating pulse, following a technique attributed to Santorio Santorio (1561–1636). Mersenne (1636–7) gave an elaborate description of the workings of a pendulum, establishing 3½ pieds (approximately feet, or c1.06 metres) as the length that would beat once a second (Mouvement des corps, ii, §§14–16; De la composition, v, §11); and he even suggested that a composer wishing to send his music to Constantinople, Persia or China might like to indicate its tempo by means of pendulum lengths (Des instruments a cordes, iii, §18). But his scattered and repetitive discussion had no apparent influence in a world that felt little need to communicate music to China; and he implied that the current flexibility of performance tempos would require several different pendulums in the course of a single piece. Mace, though applying the pendulum to music, used it merely to establish stability of tempo (see §1 (b)); the writings of Robert Boyle (1627–91) refer to a ‘skilled musician of my acquaintance’ doing the same (see Kassler, 1979).
Loulié’s famous chronomètre was the first device for defining tempo, made necessary simply by the difference between French and Italian music in his time (see fig.1). It was a pendulum mounted on a frame 72 pouces (approximately inches) high. The frame was calibrated, and a peg on the fixed end of the cord could be plugged in at various points on the frame, thereby adjusting the length of the hanging part of the cord which formed the pendulum. Its main disadvantage was that the calibrations on the frame were in pouces without any intrinsic musical significance and were therefore meaningless to anybody who did not possess a chronomètre of Loulié’s design. There is no further evidence of its use, though it was to be mentioned and described by many subsequent writers as the first attempt at a musical time-keeper.
Joseph Sauveur (1701) refined Loulié’s idea by devising for his chronomètre a calibration that made more general sense: the length of each beat was calculated in units of a tierce (1/60 of a second). His system of tierces became standard in the 18th century, and was first used for printed music by L’Affilard soon afterwards in the fifth edition (1705) of his Principes where many songs are given such tempo marks – with the added refinement of signs to indicate how many such beats appear in each bar. (It should be mentioned here that Sauveur’s échomètre was not a time-keeping device at all but a comparative scale that related Loulié’s figures to his own chronomètre figures as well as to the vibrations of particular pitches).
If Sauveur had improved the conceptual basis of Loulié’s invention, D’Onsembray (1732) improved on it mechanically. By means of a highly sophisticated set of pulleys and a dial, his métromètre could measure Sauveur’s tierces with considerable precision, giving beats from 30 to 68 tierces in length, divided into 76 steps each of a half-tierce; and a click identified the beginning of each swing. (An example of D’Onsembray’s métromètre survives in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris, Inv. 1396.)
Further inventions followed, though the exact nature of their novelty is often no longer clear. Fougeau de Moralec attempted to perfect a device that established tempo by means of dripping water (Hellouin, 1900). Godefroi de Viltaneuse produced a métromètre in 1779 (mentioned in Grétry, 1797). The composer Jean-Baptiste Davaux devised a chronomètre that was manufactured for him by Bréguet (one survives in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris, Inv. 1394); and he included its numbers for his symphonies op.11 of 1784. Almost simultaneously another system was launched, the plexichronomètre of Renaudin, which had the blessing of the Ecole Royale de Chant. This (like that of D’Onsembray) included an audible click, and seems from his own description to have worked like a small musical box, its main virtue being its small size (4½ × 3½ × 3½ pouces). A vitriolic correspondence on the relative merits of the two new machines followed in the Journal de France (ed. in BrookSF, i, 502ff). The firm of Renaudin also marketed a simple pendulum at a much lower price (see Jefferson, 1786).
The rhythmomètre of Dubos (given in FétisB – perhaps following Weber, 1830 – as ‘Duclos’ and with the date 1782 for 1787) was rejected by the Académie Royale des Sciences on 30 March 1787 (see Cohen, 1981, 70) but presented to the king and queen on 13 January and eagerly accepted by the Ecole Royale de Chant headed by Gossec (see BrookSF, i, 314) for its accuracy and flexibility; no details of its construction seem to survive.
A remarkable early survival from England is the ‘chronometer’ built by the clockmaker William Pridgin in York, some time before 1793 (when he left for Hull) and now in Fairfax House, York (see Martin, 1988). In a wooden box seven inches high and four inches square, there is an elaborate series of gears that function on a clockwork mechanism and produce not only a regular tapping but also a bell for the downbeats. 14 different tempos are offered, all associated with both a tempo mark and a time-signature engraved on the brass frontplate. Inside the front is a set of printed instructions ‘for using the musical time-beater’. This stands right outside the known traditions of such machines both in its use of gears and in its avoidance of any numerical designation for the tempos.
Meanwhile, however, the pendulum was also being used for infinitely simpler devices. William Tans’ur (1746) devoted six pages to the subject, but in terms of specific advice to the musician he found it sufficient to mention that a pendulum 39·2 inches (99·6 cm) long would beat once a second. Similarly Robert Bremner (1756) proposed that a pendulum 8' 8'' (2·64 metres) long should be ‘hung at the End of all Schools where Church music is taught’. And on a slightly more refined level Henry-Louis Choquel (1759, 2/1762) even applied tempo marks by giving the length of the pendulum needed for each piece, for example (p.176): ‘on en aura le mouvement en donnant 18 pouces de longueur au cordon’. (Evidently this was an independent idea, for in the preface to the second edition (1762) he stated, in a different context, that he had only just come across Loulié’s Elements.)
Gabory (1770) had found a simple pendulum sufficient, and Mason (1801) described one in some detail. Thomas Wright used a highly ingenious system in his keyboard concerto of c1795, defining in a preface the length of the pendulum as ‘the breadth of [a certain number of] Harpsichord and Piano Forte keys, in preference to inches, the former being always at hand, and the difference in Instruments in this respect, so trifling, as to occasion little or no alteration’. Wright seems also to have marketed a simple pendulum working in this way (see Wright, Thomas; see also Grove3 (‘Wright, Thomas’; F. Kidson)). Other such devices in England include James Peck’s Pendulum or Pocket Metrometer of c1803, as well as Rudolph Ackermann’s Regulator (a calibrated cord with a weight) and Balance Regulator (the same on a 28 cm frame) of c1812 (see Kassler, 1979).
Indeed even after the invention of Maelzel’s metronome had quickly made most other systems obsolete, Gottfried Weber continued to recommend the simplicity of the ordinary hand-held pendulum, with its length as the information that should be carried in musical scores: several works by Spohr survive with such measurements in Rhenish inches. Zmeskall followed this by suggesting that the pendulum be calibrated with Maelzel’s numbers. It is difficult to say how soon his advice was followed; but such devices are available to this day in the form of suitably calibrated tape-measures with the tape-container serving as the weight (see fig.2).
In the later 19th century other gravity metronomes were devised, among them those of Ihlenburg, Chiappani, Mahagoni (according to Barbacci, 1969) and in particular the highly successful device patented by A. Pinfold of Bradford (fig.3), a balanced weight over a horizontal bar: its mechanics owed much to the Maelzel/Winkel invention (see §3), but its devastating simplicity, coupled with its considerable elegance and its silence, ensured wide sales.
Concerning the more elaborate and sophisticated pendulum devices, various disadvantages seemed important in the years around 1800. First, their size, that of Thiémé (1801) being some 9' (2·75 metres) tall; second, their silence, since it was difficult to perceive the precise moment of change by eye (and several later developments boasted their audibility as an advantage); and third, the lack of a calibration that made musical sense. All these disadvantages were rectified in one or other of the 18th-century inventions: Renaudin’s was small, as were several of the simple pendulums; D’Onsembray and Renaudin had audible clicks; and Thiémé even mentioned calculations of tempo in beats per minute (as did Thomas Jefferson, 1786), though his actual machine evidently used Sauveur’s system of tierces. But Guthmann (1806–7) defined all these ideals as being necessary for his ‘New time machine which, however, is yet to be invented’. And it seems that one of the major factors in Maelzel’s success was his system of counting tempo in terms of beats per minute.
Zacconi (1592, f.20v) had associated the movements of a clock with musical movement, though purely as a way of illustrating how various note values move at their own speeds (just as do the differently sized wheels in a clock). But mechanical clocks had been common in Europe from the 13th century, with their invention reputedly going back to the 10th century. Apparently the first writer to suggest setting tempos in terms of a clock was William Turner (1724), who described the speed of crotchets in reversed ¢ mensuration as ‘counted as fast as the regular Motions of a Watch’. Similarly Robert Bremner in the second (1763) edition of his Rudiments lamented that his earlier (1756) suggestion of a ubiquitous pendulum (see §2) had not been well received, so he now proposed the use of a clock ‘and count the seconds, or motions of the pendulum in fours’. Tans’ur (1746) seems to be suggesting the same device.
The theory that Christoph Semmler of Halle (1669–1740) invented a metronome in the 1720s seems to derive only from a statement in Kandler (1817) in an article that is otherwise largely taken straight from Maelzel’s publicity leaflet. As already mentioned, Renaudin’s plexichronomètre of 1784 apparently worked like a musical box. In 1786 the French physician Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles devised a clockwork chronomètre musical some two metres high (Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris, Inv. 1435) and he apparently continued to modify it until 1802 when it was seen in action by J.F. Reichardt (1804). In 1798 Anthony George Eckhardt patented in London a clockwork time-keeper calibrated in ‘moments’ (ten per second) in degrees from five to 100 moments: a barrel drove three interlocking toothed wheels that operated hammers to beat at the required interval of moments. There is no trace of this actually having been manufactured. In 1800 G.E. Stöckel invited subscriptions for his ‘Chronometer’, built like a large wall-clock with a 2' (61 cm) pendulum and clearly audible hammers and bells. In spite of written support from J.F. Reichardt, Stöckel had little success; at least, in 1803 he advertised a smaller ‘improved model’, again inviting subscriptions but this time being more cautious about the terms under which he would actually manufacture the Zeitmesser. This time too he had a longer list of famous supporters, including Reichardt, Türk and Rochlitz, but there is again no evidence that the device was ever manufactured.
Among several other new machines of those years, most of which are known only from a brief reference or description, are: a time-keeper by John Chancellor (Coggins, c1822); a chronometer by Henry Smart, brother of Sir George Smart (Coggins, illustrated in Harding, 1938, pl.18), built after the manner of a barrel organ and probably deriving from Eckhardt’s machine; a machine in the shape of a pocket-watch made by Sparrevogn of Copenhagen (1817); a new pendulum by Despréaux (described by Fétis as representing no advance on Loulié’s original invention of 125 years earlier); a machine for beating time by Charles Claggett (c1793), the Timonicon (c1825) of Mr Galbreath and a ‘musical timekeeper’ (c1829) by J.B. Barnard (all documented in Kassler, 1979); and other devices by Siegmund Neukomm (1815) and perhaps by Charles Neate in London (mentioned in Lichtenthal, 1826, as ‘Neath’, though this may refer simply to Neate’s description of the Wright pendulum).
This quantity of new machines and of literature describing them was to some extent symptomatic of a general feeling that the time was ripe for a machine that would gain universal acceptance. But it also had two direct consequences. It stimulated considerable interest, so that many leading musicians were concerned with the question of precise tempo even if (or perhaps because) they were dissatisfied with the chronometers that were by then available. And it brought with it a substantial body of expertise and experiment. In short it prepared the ground for Maelzel, a man with relatively little technical or scientific knowledge but considerable musical skill, mechanical experience and business sense.
None of the earlier attempts had achieved any wide or lasting success. Maelzel came to the chronometer about 1808, having spent some years making and demonstrating mechanical instruments of various kinds, both musical and non-musical; and he then devoted over 15 years to refining and promoting his device. The result was a metronome of such perfection that modern metronomes (in the strict sense) differ little from his final model.
To judge from descriptions, his prototype (first mentioned in AMZ, 1 Dec 1813) was an ungainly pendulum machine somewhat like that of Stöckel; and its only significant characteristic was that it calculated tempo in terms of beats per minute. It had a range from 48 beats per minute to 160. The story of Beethoven’s having composed his canon in honour of Maelzel, Ta ta ta, in 1813, must now be discarded as a fiction of Schindler’s (partly because it includes the word ‘Metronom’, not otherwise known before 1815; see Howell, 1979), but the AMZ report of 1813 states that both Beethoven and Salieri were interested in the new machine. And that is a clue to Maelzel’s flair for publicity, one of the qualities without which he would probably have had no more success than the many other makers and inventors mentioned in this article.
On a promotional journey in 1815 Maelzel demonstrated his prototype to Winkel in Amsterdam. Winkel had created something similar, though the small scale of his operation and his general lack of promotion meant that he would never have achieved international success (an example of his 1814 machine is in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, with the inscription ‘Erfunden von D.N. Winkel in 1814 den 27 November in Amsterdam’; it is reproduced in Kolneder, 1980, and van Tiggelen, 1997). On the other hand, Winkel had the clue to reducing the size of the machine, namely a double-ended pendulum which effectively quartered the necessary length of the stem. (This in turn probably owed much to the investigations of the English scientist Henry Kater (1777– 1835), who is famous for having brought the understanding of the pendulum to such a point that it could be used to define the exact length of a foot.)
There can be little doubt that Maelzel treated Winkel unscrupulously. According to a later inquiry (reported in de Vos Willems, 1829), Maelzel offered to buy the invention from Winkel. When his offer was refused he simply went to London and Paris, patenting in both cities a new machine – for which he devised the name ‘metronome’ – incorporating Winkel’s crucial insight.
Kolneder (1980) has shown that Maelzel had in fact planned to set up the London factory some years previously, as noted in the AMZ article of 1813; and when he met Winkel he was on his way to London with his financial support organized, so Winkel’s contribution may have been only a refinement. But Maelzel must nevertheless have worked quickly. The patents were ratified on 1 June 1815 in London and on 14 September 1815 in Paris. By the end of 1816 he had issued a short guide to its use in French (1816); and his letters to Breitkopf & Härtel state that he had also published a Metronomic Tutor in English. Further to that, he sent metronomes to 200 composers all over Europe (see Haupt, 1927, p.130, letter of 8 April 1817) – a further example of his commercial initiative. On 18 July 1816 the Leipzig AMZ was able to announce that the new metronome was being manufactured in London and in Paris, to regret that Maelzel had not seen fit to entrust his work to German manufacturers, and to state that metronomes from Paris were already on sale at Breitkopf & Härtel’s shop.
This new 1815–16 metronome – the one on which all the surviving Beethoven markings were made – was a metal box some 31 cm high; and although the pendulum worked like the later one its calibrations were only from 50 to 160 – in twos from 50 to 60, in threes from 60 to 72, in fours from 72 to 120, in sixes from 120 to 144 and in eights from 144 to 160. (Examples survive in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna (see fig.4); the private collection of Paul Badura-Skoda, Vienna; and at the Brussels Conservatory, Inv. 639). Within a few years several major composers had issued Maelzel Metronome (MM) numbers for works by themselves and others; and even though many composers soon concluded that the supposed accuracy of metronome indications was musically speaking a chimera, Beethoven’s acceptance of it was in itself enough to ensure survival for Maelzel’s system.
Over the following years Maelzel continued to change and refine his metronomes. Already in 1817 he was making silent gravity-driven metronomes (fig.5) which he abandoned in 1821 as being unpopular. From 1821 he started making all his metronomes in mahogany rather than metal. In 1828 a clock maker in Amiens named Bienaimé-Fournier had evolved a machine (an example is in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris) with three ‘improvements’ on that of Maelzel: ability to remain regular even when not on a horizontal surface; the possibility of changing tempo without stopping the machine; and the addition of a device to strike every two, three, four or six beats. Fétis enthusiastically endorsed this as the successor to Maelzel’s machine. But Maelzel, with a characteristic sense for the difference between important and unimportant matters, incorporated only the striking device into his subsequent metronomes. At some stage in the 1820s he also reduced the height to 20 cm; and later expanded the calibrations: they now ran from 40 to 208, in twos from 40 to 50 and in eights from 160 to 208, otherwise precisely as on the earlier metronome. These numbers and these limits have become standard for nearly all musical time-measurers since then, to such an extent that a figure such as crotchet = 130 has been described as ‘irrational’ simply because it does not appear on Maelzel’s system.
Since then the clockwork metronome has remained practically unchanged. Slightly smaller models in a plastic case have been developed; but they usually retain many of the original Maelzel features: a double-ended clockwork-driven pendulum; a stem with ridges for positioning the upper weight, which is trapezium-shaped and has a small spring to hold it in position; calibrations written on a scale mounted behind the stem; relatively meaningless tempo-words added to the calibrations; a bell arrangement for downbeats activated by a little slider at the side; and a triangular (or obelisk-like) shape with a cover on the front that must be taken off before the metronome is operated.
Attempted refinements have been few and mostly short-lived. Hellouin (1900) mentioned French patents by Fayermann (1853, no.17880), Lesfauris (1854, no.20531), Janniard (1859, no.43290), Carden (1865, no.69207) and Metzger (1868, no.80809) as well as what may have been the earliest electric device by Gaiffe (1892); there were certainly many more in other countries. In response to Saint-Saëns’s complaints that most metronomes were inaccurate Léon Roques devised a métronome normal which was cheap, easy to make, silent, and calibrated with 90 gradations from 30 to 236 (Brussels Conservatory, Inv. 1691 and 1697). In 1893 J. Treadway Hanson proposed (but probably did not execute) an extension that could actually beat time. More successful has been the Swiss-made pocket metronome: built like a pocket-watch, it has one hand that swings and clicks at the correct pace and another hand that can be moved through all degrees from 40 to 200.
Such is the range of techniques made available by electronic technology that it may never be possible (or interesting) to detail the various ‘metronomes’ that have been developed along these lines. The number of new devices far exceeds that known from the years 1780–1830, but few have aroused much interest; and the advent of the synthesizer perhaps made most of them all but obsolete.
For most mid-20th-century teaching purposes an electric box is used with a light on top that flashes the beats but can be supported by an audible click (such as the model by Franz); again the tempo numbers tend to follow Maelzel’s last system. More recently smaller versions have been made, often equipped with an earphone (such as the model by Seiko). More elaborate devices have been made to cope with complex cross-rhythms, ‘irrational’ tempos and gradual change (see Henck, 1979 and 1980), as demanded by avant-garde scores. There have also been machines that can calculate the tempo of a received signal.
But it may well be true that the metronome still to some extent carries with it the stigma of being meaningless and unmusical in its aims (as in uses (i) and (ii) outlined in §1 above); and this could hamper the success of new inventions to cope with uses (iii) and (iv).
For many years it was normal to ignore the metronome marks of 19th-century composers, usually on the basis that many of them could not be made to work and probably reflected inaccurate metronomes. Those attitudes changed considerably in the 1980s when the performance practice movement began to take a greater interest in the music of the 19th century: following original or early metronome markings became one of the most tangible ways of making a performance ‘authentic’. Older theories that Schumann’s metronome, for example, did not function correctly were shown to be based on flawed reasoning (Kämper, 1964); and more attention was paid to the long-term campaign of Rudolf Kolisch to have Beethoven's metronome markings taken more seriously. It had been shown by physical experimentation (Talbot, 1971) that it is almost impossible for a metronome to change its beat by more than 5% and still function at all. Moreover, the magic of the system of counting beats per minute (a system that took so long to emerge) is that most musicians know roughly what a particular metronome number means without reference to a machine: that should have been almost as easy for Beethoven or Schumann as for any musician today.
But these considerations may not justify a fundamentalist view of metronome numbers. That the surviving numbers could contain misprints in an otherwise rigorously proofread edition seems also not merely possible but probable. No composer (with a few recent exceptions) has used metronome numbers as part of the initial compositional material for a work; they are most often added at the last moment. There has been some discussion (Gleich, 1988, and elsewhere) of the possibility that some composers of the 19th century occasionally read the double-beat of a metronome as reflecting a single beat in the music: while this counter-intuitive notion plausibly explains certain cases, most such cases may be better explained by suggesting a crotchet misprinted as a minim.
Somfai’s important analysis (1996) of Bartók’s metronome marks and timings throws the focus on various matters that help us to understand many of the more perplexing markings by Bartók and others. First, that Bartók revised his metronome numbers, often substantially, when he changed from the traditional clockwork-driven device to a simple tape-and-pendulum (fig.2): it should perhaps be obvious that it can be very hard to establish a tempo with the Maelzel machine, which must be stopped and adjusted several times before it matches the tempo desired (this despite André Gertler’s remark that Bartók had an uncanny sense of ‘absolute tempo’). Second, that Bartók’s own recordings are often rather different from any of his markings for a particular piece – and it is a common enough phenomenon that composers are more unpredictable in conducting their own works than those of others (as has been remarked of Mendelssohn and Elgar among others). Third, that Bartók’s additional indications of the length of particular sections (given to the nearest second, and usually conflicting with the metronome mark) were simply the report of one performance but given as an indication of matters that were not susceptible to strict metronomization, partly because almost any music needs flexibility of tempo. Fourth, that Bartók routinely added his metronome marks only at the last proof stage of publication, so several of them have misprints, particularly the confusion of a minim for a crotchet.
Since few composers like to play with the metronome ticking alongside, it must be considered inevitable that most metronome numbers are established at the desk, sometimes with results that are wildly faster than would be appropriate with, for example, a full orchestra playing (for further considerations, see Tempo and expression marks). This may well explain the divergencies noted by Reidemeister (1997) between metronome markings and performances played or conducted by their composers in the 20th century.
Metronome (i), §5: Attitudes to the metronome and to metronome numbers
A General studies. B Theoretical studies. C Chronometre and non-clockwork time-keepers. D Clockwork metronomes.
Grove 6 (‘L’Affilard’; E. Schwandt); MGG2 (W. Auhagen)
F. Hellouin [Hélouin]: ‘Histoire du métronome en France’, Congrès international d’histoire de la musique: Paris 1900, 264–70; expanded in F. Hellouin: Feuillets d’histoire musicale française, i (Paris, 1903), 15
P. Rougnon: ‘Le métronome: son utilité, son emploi, son histoire’, EMDC, II/i (1925), 323–32
F.A. Drechsel: ‘Zur Geschichte des Taktmessers’, ZI, xlvi (1925–6), 947–50
C.R. Blum: Das Musik-Chronometer (Leipzig, 1926)
G. Haupt: ‘J.N. Mälzels Briefe an Breitkopf & Härtel’, Der Bär: Jb von Breitkopf & Härtel 1927, 122–45
R.E.M. Harding: ‘The Metronome and its Precursors’, Origins of Musical Time and Expression (London, 1938), 1–35; pubd separately (Henley-on-Thames, 1983)
A. Lemke: Jacob Gottfried Weber: Leben und Werk: ein Beitrag zur Musikgeschichte des mittelrheinischen Raumes (Mainz, 1968)
R. Barbacci: El tiempo musical: el metrónomo y sus antecedentes (Lima, 2/1969)
R. Angermüller: ‘Aus der Frühgeschichte des Metronoms: die Beziehungen zwischen Mälzel und Salieri’, ÖMz, xxvi (1971), 134–40
H.C. Wolff: ‘Das Metronom des Louis-Léon Pajot 1735’, Festskrift Jens Peter Larsen, ed. N. Schiørring, H. Glahn and C.E. Hatting (Copenhagen, 1972), 205–17
H. Tünker: Musikelektronik: elektronische Schlagzeuge, Sound-Orgeln, Glockenspiele, Metronome selbstgebaut (Munich, 1973, 2/1974)
E. Schwandt: ‘L’Affilard on the French Court Dances’, MQ, lx (1974), 389–400
H.K. Lange: ‘Das Fadenpendel-Metronom’, ÖMz, xxxi (1976), 153–7
R.E. Maxham: The Contributions of Joseph Sauveur (1653–1716) to Acoustics (diss., U. of Rochester, 1976), 25
Beethoven Colloquium: Vienna 1977
H. Henck: ‘Metronomwerte aus dem Sekundenschlag’, SMz, cxix (1979), 140–43
J.C. Kassler: The Science of Music in Britain, 1714–1830: a Catalogue of Writings, Lectures, and Inventions (New York, 1979)
W. Kolneder: ‘Zur Geschichte des Metronoms’, Hifi-Stereophonie, xix (1980), 152–62
W. Rosenberg: ‘Des verteufelte Metronom’, Hifi-Stereophonie, xix (1980), 167–8
E. Schwandt and J. O’Donnell: ‘The Principles of L’Affilard’, EMc, viii (1980), 77–81
A. Cohen: Music in the French Royal Academy of Sciences: a Study in the Evolution of Musical Thought (Princeton, NJ, 1981), 68
H. Leonhardt: Der Taktmesser: Johann Nepomuk Mälzel: ein lückenhafter Lebenslauf (Hamburg, 1990)
L. Somfai: Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Berkeley, 1996)
BrookSF; MersenneHU
L. Zacconi: Prattica di musica (Venice, 1592/R), f.20v
T. Mace: Musick’s Monument (London, 1676/R), 80
M. L’Affilard: Principes très-faciles pour bien apprendre la musique (Paris, 5/1705/R)
J.-A. de La Chapelle: Suite de vrais principes de la musique (Paris, 1737)
R. Bremner: The Rudiments of Music, or A Short and Easy Treatise on that Subject (Edinburgh, 1756, 3/1763)
[H.-L. Choquel]: La musique rendue sensible par la méchanique (Paris, 1759, 2/1762/R)
W. Crotch: Specimens of Various Styles of Music (London, c1806–c1809)
Suggestion that composers note the performed length of their works, AMZ, xv (1813), 305–7
‘Die Tempo's sämmtlicher Sätze aller Symphonien des Hrn L.v. Beethoven, vom Verf. selbst nach Maelzels Metronom bestimmt’, AMZ, xix (1817), 873–4
J.N. Hummel: Ausführliche theoretisch-practische Anweisung zum Piano-Forte-Spiel (Vienna, 1828, 2/1838; Eng. trans., 1829), 439
G.W. Fink: ‘Über des Bedürfniss, Mozart’s Hauptwerke unserer Zeit so metronomisirt zu liefern, wie der Meister selbst sie ausführen liess’, AMZ, xli (1839), 477–81
G. Nottebohm: ‘Metronomische Bezeichnungen’, Beethoveniana (Leipzig, 1872/R), 126–37
G. Nottebohm: ‘Metronomische Bezeichnung der ersten elf Streichquartette’, Zweite Beethoveniana, ed. E. Mandyczewski (Leipzig, 1887/R), 519–21
H. Alvin and R. Prieur: Métronome expérimentale (Paris, 1895)
Baudot: ‘Utilité d’un appareil enregistreur des mouvements des oeuvres musicales’, Congrès international de musique: Paris 1900, 38–9
Canat de Chizy: ‘Régularisation des indications et appareils métronomiques’, Congrès international de musique: Paris 1900, 31–3
Frémond: ‘Régularisation des indications métronomiques’, Congrès international de musique: Paris 1900, 34–8
O. Urbach: ‘Metronom-Bezeichnungen klassischer Werke’, Neue Musik-Zeitung, xxxii (1911), 40, 369
O. Baensch: ‘Zur neunten Symphonie’, NBeJb 1925, 137
E. Borrel: ‘Les indications métronomiques laissées par les auteurs français du XVIIIe siècle’, RdM, ix (1928), 149–53
R. Kirkpatrick: ‘Eighteenth-Century Metronomic Indications’, PAMS 1938, 30–50
F. Rothschild: ‘The Metronome in Beethoven’s Time’, Musical Performance in the Times of Mozart and Beethoven (London, 1961)
E. Forbes, eds.: Thayer’s Life of Beethoven (Princeton, NJ, 1964, 2/1967), ii, 686
S. Gullo: Das Tempo in der Musik des XIII. und XIV. Jahrhunderts (Berne, 1964)
D. Kämper: ‘Zur Frage der Metronombezeichnungen Robert Schumanns’, AMw, xxi (1964), 141–55
B.S. Brook: ‘Le tempo dans l’exécution de la musique instrumentale à la fin du XVIII siècle: les contributions de C. Mason et William Crotch’, FAM, xii (1965), 196–204
P. Stadlen: ‘Beethoven and the Metronome – I’, ML, xlviii (1967), 330–49
L. Talbot: ‘A Note on Beethoven’s Metronome’, Journal of Sound and Vibration, xvii (1971), 323–9
B. Schlotel: ‘Schumann and the Metronome’, Robert Schumann: the Man and His Music, ed. A. Walker (London, 1972), 109–19
C. Wagner: ‘Experimentelle Untersuchungen über das Tempo’, ÖMz, xxix (1974), 589–604
S. Howell: ‘Beethoven’s Maelzel Canon: Another Schindler Forgery?’, MT, cxx (1979), 987–90
H.-K. Metzger, ed.: Beethoven: das Problem der Interpretation, Musik-Konzepte, viii (Munich, 1979)
H. Henck: ‘Zur Berechnung und Darstellung irrationaler Zeitwerte’, SMz, cxx (1980), 26–34, 89–97
P. Stadlen: ‘Beethoven and the Metronome, II’, Soundings, ix (1982), 38–73
C. von Gleich: ‘Die Theorie des variablen Metronomgebrauchs’, Mf, xli (1988), 46–9
W. Auhagen: ‘Zur Theorie des variablen Metronomgebrauchs’, Mf, xlii (1989), 55–60
C. Brown: ‘Historical Performance, Metronome Marks and Tempo in Beethoven’s Symphonies’, EMc, xix (1991), 247–58
R. Kolisch: Tempo und Charakter in Beethovens Musik, Musik-Konzepte, lxxvi–lxxvii (Munich, 1992); Eng. trans. in MQ, lxxvii (1993), 90–131
T.Y. Levin: ‘Integral Interpretation: Introductory Notes to Beethoven, Kolisch, and the Question of the Metronome’, MQ, lxxvii (1993), 81–9
E. Segerman: ‘A Re-Examination of the Evidence on Absolute Tempo before 1700’, EMc, xxiv (1996), 227–48, 681–9
P. Reidemeister: ‘Tempovorschrift und ihre Ausführung: Komponisten als Interpreten eigener Werke’, Aspekte der Zeit in der Musik: Alois Ickstadt zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. H. Schneider (Hildesheim, 1997), 225–301
B. Sherman: ‘Tempos and Proportions in Brahms: Period Evidence’, EMc, xxv (1997), 462–77
P.J. van Tiggeln: ‘Über die Priorität der Erfindung des Metronoms’, Aspekte der Zeit in der Musik: Alois Ickstadt zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. H. Schneider (Hildesheim, 1997), 98–126
L. Somfai: ‘Tempo, Metronome, Timing in Bartók’s Music: the Case of the Pianist-Composer’, Der Grad der Bewegung, ed. J.-J. Dünki, A. Haefeli and R. Rapp (Berne, 1998), 47–71
FétisB
E. Loulié: Eléments ou principes de musique (Paris, 1696/R, 2/1698; Eng. trans., 1965)
J. Sauveur: ‘Principes d’acoustique et de musique ou système général des intervalles des sons’, Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences [1701] (Paris, 1704, Mémoires, 197–364, esp. 315
A. Malcolm: A Treatise of Musick, Speculative, Practical and Historical (Edinburgh, 1721/R), 407
L.-L. Pajot [Comte d’Onsembray]: ‘Description et usage d’un métromètre ou machine pour battre les mesures et les temps de toutes sortes d’airs’, Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences [1732] (Paris, 1735), Mémoires, 182–96
W. Tans’ur: A New Musical Grammar, or The Harmonical Spectator (London, 1746, 5/1772 as The Elements of Musick Display’d, 7/1829 as A Musical Grammar), 41
J.-J. Rousseau: ‘Chronomètre’, Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1768/R; Eng. trans., 1771, 2/1779/R)
Gabory: Manuel utile et curieux sur la mesure du temps (Angers, 1770)
J. Harrison: A Description Concerning such a Mechanism as will Afford a Nice or True Mensuration of Time (London, 1775)
F. Pelletier: Hommages aux amateurs des arts, ou Mémoire (St Germain-en-Laye, 1782)
J.-B. Davaux: [untitled letter] ‘sur un instrument ou pendule nouveau’, Journal encyclopédique, lvii (1784), 534–7
T. Jefferson: letter of 3 Jan 1786 to Francis Hopkinson, in J.P. Boyd, ed.: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ix (Princeton, NJ, 1954), 146
J.-B. Dubos: ‘Chronomètre ou machine pour battre la mésure’, MS presented to Académie royale des sciences, 30 March 1787, but not accepted [see Cohen (1981), 70]
F.-J. Gossec: report on Dubos’ rhythmomètre (Paris, 1787) [lost, cited in FétisB (‘Duclos’); on date and identification see BrookSF, i, 314]
J.G. Weiske: Zwölf geistliche prosaische Gesänge, mit … Beschreibung eines Tactmessers (Leipzig, 1789)
A. Burja: Beschreibung eines musikalischen Zeitmessers (Berlin, 1790)
N.-E. Framery: ‘Chronomètre’, Encyclopédie méthodique: musique, i, ed. N.-E. Framery and P.-L. Ginguené (Paris, 1791/R)
T. Wright: Preface to A Concerto for the Harpsichord or Piano Forte (London, c1795)
A.E.M. Grétry: Mémoires, ou Essais sur la musique (Paris, 2/1797/R), i, 315
C. Mason: Rules on the Times, Metres, Phrases & Accents of Composition (London, c1801)
F. Thiémé: Nouvelle théorie sur les différents mouvements des airs avec le projet d’un nouveau chronomètre (Paris, 1801/R)
J.-L. Despréaux: Nouveau chronomètre musical, établi sur des bases astronomiques (Paris, 1813)
G. Weber: ‘Noch einmal ein Wort über den musikalischen Chronometer oder Taktmesser’, AMZ, xv (1813), 441–7
G. Weber: ‘Ueber die jetzt bevorstehende wirkliche Einführung des Taktmessers’, AMZ, xvi (1814), 445–9, 461–4
A.-L. Bréguet: Horlogerie pour l’usage civil, chronomètres portatifs (Paris, c1815)
G. Weber: Über chronometrische Tempobezeichnung (Mainz, 1817)
G. Weber: ‘Chronometer’, Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste, xxi, ed. J.S. Ersch and J.G. Gruber (Leipzig, 1830), 204
J. LaRue: ‘The Mysterious Chronometre of Davaux’, New Perspectives on Music: Essays in Honor of Eileen Southern, ed. J. Wright and S.A. Floyd (Warren, MI, 1991), 63–7
Grove1 (W.S. Rockstro)
W. Turner: Sound Anatomiz’d in A Philosophical Essay on Musick (London, 1724/R, 3/1749 as A Philosophical Essay on Musick), 20
J.-B. Davaux and Renaudin: correspondence in Journal de Paris, May–June 1784 [ed. in BrookSF, i, 502ff]
A.G. Eckhardt: A Certain Instrument to Serve as a General Standard for Regulating the Proper Time of Musical Performance (English Patent no.2267, 1798)
A.H. Wenk: Beschreibung eines Chronometers oder musikalischen Taktmessers (Magdeburg, 1798)
G.E. Stöckel: ‘Über die Wichtigkeit der richtigen Zeitbewegung eines Tonstücks, nebst einer Beschreibung meines musikalischen Chronometers’, AMZ, ii (1799–1800), 657–66, 673–8
G.E. Stöckel: ‘Noch ein Wort über den musikalischen Zeitmesser’, AMZ, vi (1803–4), 49–55
J.F. Reichardt: Vertraute Briefe aus Paris geschreiben in den Jahren 1802 und 1803 (Hamburg, 1804, 2/1805), iii, 311; ed. R. Weber (Berlin, 1981)
F. Guthmann: ‘Ein neuer Taktmesser, welcher aber erst erfunden werden soll’, AMZ, ix (1806–7), 117–19
Announcement of Maelzel’s chronometer, endorsed by Beethoven, Salieri, Weigel AMZ, xv (1813), 784–8
J. Maelzel: An Instrument or Instruments, Machine or Machines, for the Improvement of all Musical Performance, which I Denominate a Metronome or Musical Timekeeper (English Patent no.3966, 1815)
J. Maelzel: Pour une espèce de chronomètre appelé métronome en usage dans la musique (French Patent no.696, 1815)
Notice sur le métronome de J. Maelzel (Paris, 1816, 2/1822)
‘Mälzels Metronom’, AMZ, xix (1817), 417–22
Gld. [of Copenhagen]: ‘Andreas Christian Sparrevogns Taktuhr’, AMZ, xix (1817), 233–43
F.S. Kandler: ‘Rückblicke auf die Chronometer und Herrn Mälzels neueste Chronometerfabrik in London’, Wiener Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, i (1817), 33, 41, 49, 57
I.F. Mosel: ‘Herrn Johann Mälzels Metronom’, Wiener Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, i (1817), 405
‘Zur Geschichte des musikal Metronomen’, AMZ, xx (1818), 468–73 [with affidavit from Winkel claiming for himself the invention of Maelzel’s machine]
‘Maelzel’s Metronome’, Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, iii (1821), 302–5
J. Coggins: The Musical Assistant (London, c1822)
P. Lichtenthal: ‘Metronomo’, Dizionario e bibliografia della musica, i (Milan, 1826/R)
[Bienaimé-Fournier]: Notice du métronome perfectionné de Bienaimé (Amiens, 1828)
F.-J. Fétis: ‘Métronome perfectionné de M. Bienaimé’, Revue musicale, ii (1828), 534
F.-J. Fétis: ‘Sur le métronome de Maelzel’, Revue musicale, ii (1828), 361
J. de Vos Willems: ‘Correspondance’, Revue musicale, vi (1829), 56
J.T. Harrison: ‘A New Metronome’, PMA, xx (1893–4), 23
D. Martin: ‘An Early Metronome’, EMc, xvi (1988), 90–92
For further bibliography see Tempo and expression marks.
