Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/783

RAUZZINI. orchestra, was given at a Philharmonic Concert in 1887.

RASOUMOWSKY. Pp. 77b and 78a, the two examples are given in Köhler's 'Album Russe,' nos. 188 and 175 respectively.

RAUZZINI, Line 8 of article, add that his first appearance in London was in Corri's 'Alessandro nell' Indie.' The Round mentioned in l. 25 will be found in vol. iv. p. 191.

RAVENSCROFT, Add that a set of sonatas in three parts (two violins and violone or arch-lute) by him, were printed at Rome in 1695.

RAVENSCROFT, Line 19, for 1611 read 1614.

RAYMOND AND AGNES. Add that the opera had been produced at Manchester in 1855.

REAL FUGUE. P. 81a, note 1, for 1558 read 1588.

REBEC. Line 5 from end of article; a correction of the statement there made will be found in vol. iv. p. 271, note 1.

RECITATIVE. P. 85a, last sentence, for correction see vol. iii. p. 695, note 2.

RECORDING MUSIC PLAYED EXTEMPORANEOUSLY. Many efforts have been made to obtain a permanent record of music played impromptu on the pianoforte or organ.

In the year 1747 the Rev. J. Creed proposed to make a machine 'to write down extempore voluntaries as fast as any master shall play them,' but the apparatus does not seem to have been constructed. In vol. i. p. 499 of this work will be found a brief account of some early attempts to construct such machines. Hohlfeld's apparatus, made in 1752, is simplicity itself, and has been the parent of many such schemes put forth as novel from that time down to our own day. The plan of attaching a pencil or some form of stylus underneath the far end of each pianoforte key, so that when it is depressed it shall make a mark (more or less long according to the time value of the note held down) upon a slowly moving band of paper unwound from a roll, is an obvious idea. But there are material difficulties connected with such a plan, the chief being the ready translation of its product into the ordinary notation. Some inventors proposed to substitute for the friable pencil a metal stylus and black carbonized paper. But no attempt was made to indicate the bars on the paper, and so the streaks more or less long, the hazy accidentals and the rests on the paper presented a hopeless puzzle to the transcriber. In 1827 M. Carreyre exhibited before the French Institute a 'Melographic piano,' in which the music played was represented by certain signs impressed on a thin plate of lead. A committee was appointed to examine the apparatus, but inasmuch as they never reported, the machine was doubtless not a success. M. Boudouin afterwards read before the same body a paper concerning another scheme of this kind, but nothing is known of his plan. In 1836 an English patent was taken out on behalf of M. Eisenmenger of Paris for an apparatus of the depressed stylus and carbonized paper type, and it is notable as showing the first attempt made to measure off the bars. The inventor suggested that this could be accomplished by the performer's beating time with his foot on a pedal; mechanism connected with this punctured the moving band of paper, dividing it into regulated spaces. It is uncertain whether a machine was ever made on this plan. Towards the close of 1840, M. Duprat de Tressog patented at Paris an apparatus of this kind, but no description of the plan has been published. In 1856 I. Merzolo, an Italian engineer, applied for a provisional patent for an apparatus to give an 'identical repetition with types like those used in ordinary printing.' The specification is very brief, and too vague to indicate how the desired object could be accomplished. In 1863 electricity is first mentioned in connection with this subject, a patent being taken out by Mr. F. B. Fenby of Worcester, for 'The Electro-Magnetic Phonograph' (the same word which Edison employed some sixteen years later). The main principle of Fenby's instrument was identical with that which underlies all telegraphic operations, viz. the making a bent piece of soft iron into a temporary magnet by passing an electric current round it; by the motion so obtained from its armature a small inked wheel was pressed against a band of moving paper. The scheme seems to be complicated, and there is no evidence that such a machine was ever made. In 1864 Mr. E. S. Endres applied for a patent, but it was refused him. His chimerical proposal was to have as many type-wheels as there were pianoforte keys; on the periphery of these wheels there were cut notes of various values, from a semibreve to a demisemiquaver. Upon the finger rising- from a note struck, the intention was, that the revolving wheel should print on paper an ordinaiy note of the exact time-value of the sound played. Pedals had to be depressed when accidentals were used. An examination of the mechanism drawn shows that the idea was quite impracticable. As late as 1880 Schwetz a German, Hoyer a Frenchman, in 1884 Allen an Englishman, and in 1885 Greiner of New York, amongst others, took out patents for apparatuses of the depressed pencil order. At the Paris Exhibition of 1881, M. J. Charpentier exhibited 'La Mélographie Répétiteur,' attached to a small harmonium. Its inventor stated that it was to write down ordinary music played extemporaneously on the instrument dans le langage de Jacquard. The process was to be effected by means of electro-magnets connected with the keys putting into action a series of cutters which cut slits in a band of moving paper, the slits corresponding to the length and position of the notes. By an after arrangement the perforated paper allows the wind to pass through its slits, and thus reproduces the music previously played. M. Charpentier was enthusiastic enough