Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Automaton

Automaton. D'Alembert gives an account, in the "Encyclop�die M�thodique," of a gigantic mechanical flute player. It stood on a pedestal, in which some of the " works" were contained ; and not only blew into the flute, but, with its lips. increased or diminished the tones it forced out of the instrument, performing the legato and staccato passages to perfection. The fingering was also quite accurate. This marvellous flutist was exhibited in Paris in 1738, and was made by Jacques de Vaucanson, the prince of automaton contrivers. A full orchestra of clockwork musicians is quite possible. Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome, opened an exhibition in Vienna, in 1809, in which an automaton trumpeter, as large as life, performed with surprising accuracy and power.