The Metronome of 1815
Maelzel's pendulum turned tempo into beats per minute, giving performance a reproducible scale.
Related
Time and place
London and Vienna, 1815. Maelzel took out a patent for a portable metronome in London; his dealings with Beethoven belonged to Vienna, where he built automata and ear trumpets for the composer.
What happened
Before this, Allegro and Andante were relative terms, and the same piece could differ greatly between church, court and theatre. Maelzel used a double pendulum with an adjustable weight to give beats per minute and turned tempo into a number. Beethoven adopted the device quickly, marking metronome values on the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies and on the Hammerklavier Sonata; publishers and conservatories followed.
What changed
Tempo became a transferable parameter rather than an adjective. Composers could fix their intention, players could reproduce it in another city, and the metronome entered the practice room as a teaching tool. Disputes arrived at the same time, as many of Beethoven's marks seem impossibly fast, and today's metronome wars still circle those numbers.
Listen to the turn
Begin with the first movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata, with a very fast half-note mark of 138; hear how a player chooses between clarity and frenzy. Then the presto of the Ninth Symphony, where the mark pushes contrast to its limit. Finally the Allegretto of the Seventh, often played slower than the mark, where number and breath pull against each other.
Related
This turn moves from Classical into Romantic; see Metronome Mark and Tempo.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- Grove Music Online, entry "Metronome" — invention and patent history checked, not quoted
- Alexander Wheelock Thayer, The Life of Beethoven (rev. ed.) — Beethoven and Maelzel checked, not quoted
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.