Here also may certain puffing publications be alluded to, which resemble the literary productions of quack doctors. Some are curious, however objectionable they may be. We have guides professing to teach how to become a brilliant player without the trouble of practising an instrument; how to compose fine music with the aid of dice instead of musical knowledge; how to sing in chorus without having a voice; and suchlike tempting propositions.
Nor must the fanciful schemes for reform relating to the theory of music, to musical notation, to the construction of instruments, etc., be left unnoticed. Some of these are very extravagant, while others have proved to be of greater practical utility than was expected. Space can only be afforded here for three curious examples of proposed innovations, two of which shall be selected from English publications of this description.
'An Essay to the Advancement of Musick, by casting away the Perplexity of different Cliffs, and uniting all Sort of Musick,—Lute, Viol, Violin, Organ, Harpsechord, Voice, etc.—in one Universal Character;' by Thomas Salmon, London, 1672.
'A New System of Music, both theoretical and practical, and yet not mathematical; written in a manner entirely new; that's to say, in a Style plane and intelligible; and calculated to render the Art more Charming, the Teaching not only less tedious, but more profitable, and the Learning easier by three Quarters. All which is done by tearing off the Veil that has for so many ages hung before that noble Science;' by John Francis De La Fond, London, 1725.—The author proposes to abolish the clefs entirely, as he finds them only troublesome.
Wilhelm Kühnau published in Berlin, in the year 1810, a book entitled "Die Blinden Tonkünstler," which contains the biographies of seventy blind musicians. The author discards all the foreign words used in German music, and substitutes for them German words of his own coining. For Kapellmeister he proposes 'Tonmeister;' for Clarinette, 'Gellflöte;' for Harmonika, 'Hauchspiel;' and so on. He, however, does not stand alone as such a whimsical innovator. Beethoven, ten years later, coined the word 'Hammer-Klavièr' for Pianoforte, and used it on the title-page of his large sonata in B flat major, Op. 106.
As specimens of Lampoons may be mentioned:—Joel Collier's 'Musical Travels through England,' London, 1774, written in ridicule of Dr. Charles Burney; and L. Rellstab's 'Henriette, oder die schöne Sängerin,' Leipzig, 1826, which caricatures certain admirers of the celebrated songstress and estimable lady, Henriette Sontag, in Berlin. These musical enthusiasts included several noblemen of the highest position, and a foreign ambassador at the Prussian Court, who were described under fictitious names so as to be easily recognised. The scandalous gossip thereby occasioned induced the government to confiscate the obnoxious though witty book, and to condemn Rellstab to be imprisoned three months in the fortress of Spandau. The punishment of the author, of course, greatly increased the popularity of the book. Being forbidden by high authority, it was read everywhere,—even aloud to circles of guests in the coffee-rooms and wine-houses of Berlin,—until curiosity was satisfied.
As regards musical novels, those which may be called curious are mostly so on account of their eccentricities and improbabilities. Some interesting exceptions could, however, be pointed out. The heroes of the novels are not unfrequently drawn from life, inasmuch as they represent certain celebrated musicians.
E. T. A. Hoffmann, the spirited and highly imaginative novelist, has taken, it is generally believed, the eccentric musician Louis Böhner as a model for his famous 'Kapellmeister Kreisler.' After having travelled for several years through Germany, and performed his own compositions in concerts at different courts, Louis Böhner, more estimable as an artist than otherwise, retired to his native village in Thuringia, where he died in great poverty. His concerto in D major for the pianoforte, Op. 8, which was published about ten years before Weber composed 'Der Freischütz,' contains the following passage—
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