Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel (1777 – 28 September 1826) was the

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

of the first successful metronome. He also invented the

componium The componium is a mechanical musical instrument constructed in 1821 by Diederich Nikolaus Winkel (Lippstatt, Germany, 1777 - Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1826) that composes novel music. It is an automatic organ consisting of two barrels that revolve ...

, an "automatic instrument" that could make endless variations on a musical theme. Winkel was born in

Lippstadt Lippstadt () is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the largest town within the district of Soest. Lippstadt is situated about 60 kilometres east of Dortmund, 40 kilometres south of Bielefeld and 30 kilometres west of Paderborn. Ge ...

, settled in Amsterdam shortly after 1800, and in 1814, while experimenting with pendulums, he discovered that a pendulum weighted on both sides of the pivot could beat steady time, even for the slow tempos often used in

European classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

. Winkel donated the first model of his musical 'chronometer', dated 27 November 1814, to the Hollandsch Instituut van Wetenschappen, Letterkunde en Schoone Kunsten in Amsterdam. Unfortunately he did not appropriately protect his idea, and by 1816, Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (sometimes 'Maelzel') added a Scale to the Instrument and patented it as the Mälzel Metronome, which remains in use to this day. Thus, even today Mälzel often incorrectly receives credit for what was rightly Winkel's creation. The original model is preserved in a Dutch museum. Winkel's death was announced this: Extensive discussions on the topic of whether Mälzel stole Winkel's intellectual property can be found in the German musical Letters of the timeAllgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Band 20, 1818
Online
/ref> and since. For example: A German text (would need translation) from 1845 reads: Another text (in 1870) wrote of the metronome.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winkel, Dietrich Nikolaus 1777 births 1826 deaths 19th-century Dutch inventors 19th-century German inventors Dutch people of German descent People from Lippstadt Engineers from Amsterdam