- Performer Name:
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Date Written:
- 1824
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Galignani’s Messenger
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- 4
- Additional Info:
- No. 2821, Thursday, March 25, 1824
- Publisher:
- A. and W. Galignani
- Place of Publication:
- Paris
- Date Published:
- 1824
Text:
Not the least extraordinary invention of an extraordinary age of inventions, is a musical instrument called the Componium, now exhibiting at No. 34, Rue de l’Echiquier. This singular creation of human ingenuity is the result of 20 years’ patient research. The inventor is a German. The instrument, though of moderate size, contains within itself all the resources of a complete orchestra. Its intonations are full, clear, and melodious. But its most remarkable quality is its power of improvisation. On an air being set for it, it plays it over once, and then commences a series of variations, which it is capable of continuing for thousands of years, without any two of these variations being alike. Many of these impromptu compositions display not only originality, but grace and beauty of combination. It is, in a word, a miracle of mechanism, and appears to be “instinct” not only “with life” but with imagination.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE