Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/501

 In the following summaries only such names are included as fall more or less completely within the period 1800-30. Many writers who continued active later are elsewhere mentioned (see secs. 227-228).

The discussion of acoustical questions naturally connected itself with musical theory and æsthetics, though also pursued as a part of pure physics. The chief acousticians of the time were Chladni (d. 1827), already mentioned (see sec. 165), and Savart.

Félix Savart (d. 1841), trained as a mechanician and surgeon, about 1815 began careful studies in sound, and about 1820 was made professor of acoustics at the Collége de France. The brilliance of his researches in every branch of the subject was made known through many technical papers in the Annales de physique et de chimie. They decidedly influenced the scientific construction of instruments, especially those of the wind class. His demonstrations, appliances and ascertained laws are still everywhere used. In 1819, just after Savart began his work, Charles Cagniard de la Tour (d. 1859) perfected the improved 'sirène,' which is used in determining the vibration-numbers of tones.

Other acoustical publications were made by Georges Marie Raymond (d. 1839) upon the physical basis of music (1813); by Gottfried Weber (d. 1839), the eminent theorist, on wind and stringed instruments (from 1816); by Ernst Heinrich Weber (d. 1878), professor at Leipsic, on physiological acoustics (from 1820); by Ernst Gottfried Fischer (d. 1831), professor at Berlin, on the vibrations of strings, etc. (from 1825); and, most notably, by Johann Heinrich Scheibler (d. 1838), in the silk business at Crefeld, who from 1834 made important studies in tuning, invented a remarkably accurate series of standard forks, and advocated the so-called 'Stuttgart pitch' (a = 440, c = 528), as against Sauveur's pitch (c = 512 = 2^9).

Among the writers upon æsthetics were the critic Rochlitz of Leipsic (d. 1842), in some early essays (1796); the oriental scholar Guillaume André Villoteau (d. 1839), in comparisons of music with other arts (1807); Johann Gottlieb Wendt (d. 1836), professor at Göttingen, with several essays (from 1808); Ignaz Franz Mosel of Vienna (d. 1844), in a work on dramatic style (1813); the celebrated professor at Göttingen, Johann Friedrich Herbart (d. 1841), who approached the subject from both the psychological and philosophical sides (1811, '24-5, '31); Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl of Brunswick (d. 1849), a follower of Herbart (1827); Wilhelm Christian Müller (d. 1831) of Bremen (1830); the bibliographer Lichtenthal (d. 1853) of Milan (1831); and Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (d. 1832) of Munich (posthumous).

From the multitude of writers on theory only a selection can be made, including those who either displayed real mastery or acquired popular influence.

The only striking Italian theorist (except Cherubini) was Bonifazio Asioli (d. 1832), who from before 1780 was famous as a precocious sacred composer, as a remarkable piano-virtuoso and (from 1785) as a popular opera-writer, and who, having come to Milan in 1799 as court-choirmaster, from 1808 was professor of composition at the new conservatory, retiring in 1814 to Correggio.