REPORT made to the Academy of the Fine Arts, 20th October, 1832, by its Musical Committee on the Third Metronome of Maelzel.

MESSIEURS,

YOU have heard read the two first reports made to you by your musical committee on the Metronome of Maelzel, the first dated 14th October, 1815, and the second 23d May, 1818. Your committee are of opinion, that in the two former reports the utility of this ingenious instrument, and the perfection of its mechanism, have been so fully demonstrated, that it will be needless to fatigue your attention by further dissertation on those points. What your committee now beg to call your attention to is, a still further improvement which the author has added to his instrument.

From the time of Sauveur to the present, all the time-keepers and metronomes have been limited to marking the time to be occupied by each bar of a composition, and all have performed this in a uniform manner; but, as in our musical system, the bars are divided into accented and unaccented parts, and none of the instruments hitherto invented indicated this division, they were, if the comparison may be permitted, like foot-measures divided into spaces by a number of equidistant parallel lines, but on which the marks indicating inches, half-inches, &c. had been totally omitted. The indications of the accented and unaccented parts of a bar can only be felt in relation to the bar itself, of which they form subdivisions, therefore they cannot be classed as accented or unaccented until the beating of the bar itself has been heard.

Mr. Maelzel has long since adopted the idea of adding to his metronomes this indication of beaten time in every kind of measure, whether 2, 3, 4, or 6–8, and whatever might be the rapidity or slowness of the time; but while he was occupied at a distance from France in bringing his project to perfection, M. BienaimÉ, a watchmaker at Amiens, submitted to the examination of the Conservatory of Music an instrument of a very complicated construction, intended to attain the same object. Unfortunately, notwithstanding all the talent the inventor had bestowed on his new metronome, he had not any mechanical principle for its foundation, so that it is liable to be continually out of order. The balance-wheel, which he has adopted as a regulator, is set in motion by a straight spring, which is equivalent to the spiral spring of a watch; and according to the greater or less tension of this spring, the vibrations of the balance-wheel are slower or more rapid. This spring is, therefore, the most important part of the instrument; and to secure its regularity of action, it ought not to be subject to any alterations; but this is not the case,—for the spring, which, in performing its functions, describes large arcs, will lose its flexibility, and no longer give the same number of vibrations for the same divisions on the dial. Besides, the dial-plate can only be divided according to the force of the spring, and if that gives or breaks, a new spring will require a new division of the dial-plate; the one cannot be renewed without the other.

Mr. Maelzel, by adopting as the foundation of his contrivance the unchangeable laws of the pendulum, has constructed a machine at once simple, free from all incertitude, and not subject to any derangement in its action. This last metronome has moreover the advantage of a much greater extent in its power of marking both slow and quick time. In the old instruments the slowest movement that could be marked was 50, and the fastest 160; the present extends as far as 40 for slow movements, and 208 for quick, that is to say, 10 vibrations slower and 48 quicker than the precedent ones. The improvements made by Mr. Maelzel in his metronome, instead of increasing, have tended to diminish its cost; and we are of opinion that the degree of facility with which new and useful ideas in the cultivation of the arts and sciences can be circulated, ought to be taken into consideration; for, to render this circulation easy, it is necessary that the savant, or artist, who thinks it his duty to employ any of these new methods, should be able to acquire that power at a moderate expense. We are of opinion, therefore, without intending in any way to injure M. BienaimÉ, that the metronome of M. Maelzel deserves the preference on many accounts; priority of idea, simplicity of construction, regularity of movement, solidity, elegance of form, and diminution of price, even with the addition of the mechanism for marking the time as beaten. Everything, in fact, appears to authorize our proposing that the academy should accord its approbation to the report we have now the honour to make; for, in our opinion, M. Maelzel, by this ingenious instrument, of which he has entrusted the construction to M. Wagner, one of the ablest mechanics in the capital, has rendered to the musical art a service which may be compared to that heretofore rendered to navigation by the invention of the mariner’s compass.