As with most relationships, that which developed between composers and the metronome over the course of the nineteenth century was sometimes productive and at other times yielded less positive results. Nevertheless, every composer post-Beethoven had to come to terms with the device in one way or another, even if that meant choosing to forsake it. Beethoven, of course, was “free” of Maelzel’s metronome for the majority of his life, and if we imagine his career truly getting underway following his arrival in Vienna in 1792, some twenty-five years were still to elapse before he obtained his first metronome. Whether we regard his developing connection to the instrument at this point as obsessive or simply a preoccupation, Beethoven’s plan to metronomize all his work, both past and present, reflects a level of intensity in excess of that experienced by most composers. To put matters into perspective, we might begin by considering two other German composers, each born about a decade and a half after Beethoven: Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), who died a year before Beethoven, and Louis Spohr (1784–1859), who outlived both by some twenty years.

Weber rocketed to international fame in 1821, with the luminous success of what is arguably the first important German romantic opera, Der Freischütz, a score that drew inspiration from nature and German folksong. Two years later, when Weber came to Vienna to conduct the premiere of his latest opera, Euryanthe, he called on Beethoven. Beethoven had previously voiced his astonishment over the striking originality of Der Freischütz and now Weber wrote that he was received “with an affection that was touching; he embraced me most heartily at least six or seven times … this rough, repellent man actually paid court to me, served me at table as if I had been his lady.” It is a striking image, Beethoven waiting on another and doing so with humility, and we are left to wonder if during the course of their time together their conversation might have turned to their respective impressions of Maelzel’s invention?