Music Technologist or Audio Engineer

(Florenz Friedrich)

(b Wittenberg, Nov 30, 1756; d Breslau [now Wrocław], April 3, 1827). German acoustician. He studied law at Leipzig University before turning to scientific studies. He invented two instruments, the ‘euphon’ and the ‘klavizylinder’, both of which were variants of the glass harmonica. However, he owes his fame to his celebrated experiments on the nodal patterns and corresponding frequencies of vibration plates. He showed that the vibration patterns, often called Chladni figures, could be made visible by sprinkling sand on the plate. The sand is thrown up on vibrating areas and collects around nodal lines. Chladni travelled through Europe playing on his instruments and demonstrating his experiments before many persons and institutions; he encountered Goethe, Lichtenberg, Olbers, Laplace, Napoleon and other notable men of the period. Chladni's experiments stimulated much early work on the vibration of plates and bars and indeed so impressed the Académie des Sciences, Paris, that it offered a prize for a successful explanation of his sand figures and the motion of elastic surfaces in general. His work helped to form the foundation of modern theories, capable of predicting precise vibration patterns for violin and guitar top plates and the soundboards of keyboard instruments....

(b Castelfranco Veneto, nr Treviso, Feb 25, 1709; d Treviso, July 20, 1790). Italian music theorist and acoustician. He studied with his father, the mathematician Jacopo Giordano, and at the University of Padua. In 1733 he withdrew to the family estates in Castelfranco Veneto and Treviso where he worked independently of the academic world. An amateur musician (singer, harpsichordist and violinist), he taught G.B. Bortolani (‘il Melani’) and Ignazio Spergher.

Riccati preceded Rameau in formulating a theory of the origin of the tonal scale in the triads based on the first, fourth and fifth degrees. He sent the document in which he claims to have made the discovery to F.A. Vallotti; its authenticity is confirmed by Vallotti’s reply dated 13 January 1735. In this document Riccati examines the numbering of the chords with which Vallotti accompanied the diatonic scale in his compositions, showing that they are simply the consonant triads based on the first, fourth and fifth degrees of the scale. Riccati also tries to give a rational justification for the harmonic identity between a chord and its inversions. As opposed to Rameau’s strict methodology based on Enlightenment ideas, Riccati based his ‘experiment’ on compositions by the great masters; his is substantially an empirical theory. In ...

(b Norfolk, 1702; d London, Dec 15, 1771). English naturalist and amateur musician. In 1724, after studying classics and mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, he became tutor to William Windham in Felbrig, Norfolk. In 1737 he embarked with his pupil on a tour of the Continent. From 1738 to about 1742 he and Windham, with Robert Price and others, formed a common room in Geneva for the purpose of performing plays. Stillingfleet, Windham and Price supplied the music, scenery and machines, and Gaspard Fritz led the orchestra. He returned to England in 1743 and in 1761 removed from London to Price's estate at Foxley, Herefordshire, where the two men wrote librettos for J.C. Smith, who visited Foxley in about 1758. Influenced by Price's explication of Rameau's theories, Stillingfleet undertook a partial translation of Giueseppe Tartini's Trattato di musica (Padua, 1754), with comments interspersed. To this he added a long appendix on the origin, power and efficacy of music, based on the doctrine of moral sentiment of Francis Hutcheson. Published anonymously in ...

(b Stockton-on-Tees, Sept 18, 1763; d Wycliffe Rectory, nr Barnard Castle, Nov 24, 1829). English musician and inventor . Wright was instructed in music by his father, Robert, by John Garth and, as an articled apprentice, by Thomas Ebdon. On expiration of his articles about 1784, he succeeded Garth as organist at Sedgefield. In 1794 he married Elizabeth Foxton and set to music her operetta, Rusticity. In the ‘Advertisement’ to his Concerto for Harpsichord or Pianoforte (London, c1796), he promoted his invention of a pendulum for keeping musical time as more practicable than the timekeepers of Loulié, Sauveur and others. A model of the invention, owned by Wright’s granddaughter, Miss Edith Wright of Wakefield, was seen by Frank Kidson, when compiling his article for Grove’s Dictionary (3rd edn). In 1797 Wright succeeded his father as organist at Stockton. In 1817 he was organist at Kirkleatham near Redcar; but sometime after he returned to Stockton and remained there as organist, teacher and composer until his death....