On his journeys through Germany, France and Italy, as a consequence of his approved knowledge of mechanics and music, Herr Mälzel had repeatedly been solicited by the most celebrated composers and conservatories to devote his talent to an invention which should be useful to the many, after many efforts by others had proved defective. He undertook the solution of the problem and succeeded in completely satisfying the first composers of Vienna with the model which was recently exhibited, which will be followed soon by the recognition of all others in the countries mentioned. The model has endured the most varied tests which the composers Salieri, Beethoven, Weigl, Gyrowetz and Hummel applied to it. Court Chapelmaster Salieri made the first application of this chronometer to a work of magnitude, Haydn’s “Creation,” and noted all the tempos according to the different degrees on the score, etc. Herr Beethoven looks upon this invention as a welcome means with which to secure the performance of his brilliant compositions in all places in the tempos conceived by him, which to his regret have so often been misunderstood.
The “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of December 1st devotes some two pages to the instrument, from which a few words of description are enough for our purpose:
The external parts of this chronometer ... consist of a small lever which is set in motion by a toothed wheel, the only one in the whole apparatus, by means of which and the resultant blows on a little wooden anvil, the measures are divided into equal intervals of time.
That “chronometer” was not what is now known as Mälzel’s “metronome.”
Canon and Allegretto Scherzando
It is now to be seen whether Schindler’s account of the Allegretto Scherzando will bear examination. It is this:
In the Spring of the year 1812, Beethoven, the mechanician Mälzel, Count von Brunswick, Stephan von Breuning and others, sat together at a farewell meal, the first about to undertake the visit to his brother Johann in Linz, there to work out his Eighth Symphony and afterward to visit the Bohemian baths—Mälzel, however, to journey to England to exploit his famous trumpet-player automaton. The latter project had to be abandoned, however, and indefinitely postponed. The time-machine—metronome—invented by this mechanician, was already in such a state of forwardness that Salieri, Beethoven, Weigl and other musical notabilities had given a public testimonial of its utility. Beethoven, generally merry, witty, satirical, “unbuttoned,” as he called it, at this farewell meal improvised the following canon, which was at once sung by the participants.
Schindler here prints the now well-known canon and adds: “Out of this canon was developed the Allegretto Scherzando.” That Mälzel’s “ta, ta, ta,” suggested the Allegretto, and that at a farewell meal the canon on that subject was sung, is doubtless true; but it is by no means certain that the canon preceded the symphony. Schindler was then a youth of 17 years, “in the last course of the gymnasium at Olmütz,” and consequently relates his story on the authority of another—Count Brunswick. There may have been a slight lapse of memory on the part of Brunswick as to date, but it is far more probable that Schindler unconsciously adapted what he heard to his own preconceived notions. At all events, the preceding pages show that he was in the wrong as to the metronome, as to the proposed journeys of both Beethoven and Mälzel, and therefore, probably, as to the date of the farewell meal. On this last point, the lists of “Arrivals in Vienna” offer very strong negative evidence, namely: Forray comes from Pesth-Ofen in 1809-10-11; Countess Brunswick, 1811; but no Count Brunswick after March, 1810, until the end of February, 1813—four months after the Eighth Symphony is completed. At that date, we shall find reasons in plenty for the farewell gathering—though none in the “Spring of 1812.” The canon could not have contained the word “Metronome” until 1817; nor could the “ta, ta, ta,” have represented the beat of a pendulum of an instrument not yet invented; it was an imitation of the beat of the lever on the anvil.
The Conversation Books show, in Schindler’s own hand, how he became possessed of the canon. Beethoven, during the first years of their acquaintance, was in the habit of meeting frequently evenings a captain of the Arcierenleibgarde des Kaisers, a certain Herr Pinterics, well known then in musical circles, and Oliva, “in a retired room in the Blumenstock in the Ballgässchen.” In a Conversation Book (1820) Schindler writes: