As I have occasionally mentioned in the preceding article, a machine
for noting down any piece of music played on a harpsichord or other
musical instrument, I shall here add a short history of the invention
of it, as far as I know; and with the greater pleasure, as another
nation has laid claim to it, though it belongs to my countrymen.
It appears incontestable, that a proposal for inventing such a machine
was first made known by an Englishman. In the month of March 1747,
John Freke transmitted to the Royal Society a paper written by a
clergyman of the name of Creed, which was printed in the Philosophical
Transactions under the following title:--A Demonstration of the
possibility of making a machine that shall write extempore voluntaries,
or other pieces of music, as fast as any master shall be able to play
them upon an organ, harpsichord, &c.; and that in a character more
natural and more intelligible, and more expressive of all the varieties
those instruments are capable of exhibiting, than the character now in
use[27]. The author of this paper however points out the possibility
only of making such a machine, without giving directions how to
construct it.
In the year 1745, John Frederic Unger, then land-bailiff and
burgomaster of Einbec, and who is known by several learned works, fell
upon the same invention without the smallest knowledge of the idea
published in England. This invention however, owing to the variety of
his occupations, he did not make known till the year 1752, when he
transmitted a short account of it, accompanied with figures, to the
Academy of Sciences at Berlin. The Academy highly approved of it, and
it was soon celebrated in several gazettes, but a description of it was
never printed.
A few days after Euler had read this paper of Unger’s before the
Academy, M. Sulzer informed Hohlfeld of the invention, and advised him
to exert his ingenuity in constructing such a machine. In two weeks
this untaught mechanic, without having read Unger’s paper, and even
without inspecting the figures, completed the machine, which Unger
himself had not been able to execute through want of an artist capable
of following his ideas.
Unger’s own description of his invention was printed, with
copper-plates, at Brunswick, in the year 1774, together with the
correspondence between him and Euler, and other documents. A
description of Hohlfeld’s machine, illustrated with figures, was
published after his death by Sulzer, in the new memoirs of the Academy
of Berlin, 1771, under the title of ‘Description of a machine for
noting down pieces of music as fast as they are played upon the
harpsichord.’ Sulzer there remarks, that Hohlfeld had not followed
the plan sketched out by Unger, and that the two machines differed in
this--that Unger’s formed one piece with the harpsichord, while that of
Hohlfeld could be applied to any harpsichord whatever.
When Dr. Burney visited Berlin, he was made acquainted with Hohlfeld’s
machine by M. Marpurg; and has been so ungenerous, or rather unjust,
as to say in his Musical Travels, that it is an English invention,
and that it had been before fully described in the Philosophical
Transactions. This falsehood M. Unger has sufficiently refuted. Without
repeating his proofs, I shall here content myself with quoting his
own words, in the following passage:--“How can Burney wish to deprive
our ingenious Hohlfeld of the honour of being the sole author of that
invention, and to make an Englishman share it with him, because our
German happened to execute successfully what his countryman Creed only
suggested? Such an attempt is as unjust in its consequences as it is
dishonourable to the English nation and the English artists. When we
reflect on the high estimation in which music is held in England, the
liberality of the English nobility, and their readiness to spare no
expenses in bringing forward any useful invention, a property peculiar
to the English, it affords just matter of surprise that the English
artists should have suffered themselves to be anticipated by a German
journeyman lace-maker. To our Hohlfeld, therefore, will incontestably
remain the lasting honour of having executed a German invention; and
the Germans may contentedly wait to see whether Burney will find
an English mechanic capable of constructing this machine, from the
information given by his countryman Creed.”