I would like to elaborate slightly upon the credit assigned Arthur
W.J.G. Ord-Hume and myself for the restoration of the automatic
musical instrument functions of the Roentgen-Kinzing musical tall
case clock, "Marie Antoinette", from the Nemours Mansion, and that
would be to fellow New Jersey-based enthusiast, Glenn Grabinsky.

It was with his consultation and in his personal workshop, where
much of the lacking internal mechanical components were physically
re-created by ourselves.  Much trial and error testing took place to
ensure both material and dimensional accuracy for the recreation of
those lacking component parts, without which, the instrument could not
perform those compositions by Gluck as originally intended by Kinzing
or even Roentgen himself!

This exhibition, "Extravagant Inventions", is organized by Wolfram
Koeppe, the Marina Kellen French Curator in the Metropolitan Museum's
Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue
edited by Wolfram Koeppe, with contributions written by leading
experts in the field.  It will provide the first scholarly treatment
of the subject in English in more than 30 years.  The catalogue will
be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University
Press, and will be available in the Museums book shops.  Here is the
Amazon pre-publication listing for same:

http://www.amazon.com/Extravagant-Inventions-Furniture-Roentgens-Metropolitan/dp/0300185022 

As for addressing Jean Nimal's recent comments in 121014 MMDigest,
we totally agree that the musical aspects of these period mechanical
musical instruments have usually been under-respected in the larger
historical context.  I personally feel that this barrier is ever so
slowly coming down, but, I'm also a born optimist!  It is a value
point that must continually be pressed.

My personal feeling is that individuals desirous of having access
to the actual recordings of the performances of these rare period
objects, request exactly that of the institutions owning them.  It
may only be via these means, that a positive reaction and result is
stimulated.  Nowadays, it is not necessary to create CDs for sale,
rather on-line audio files can easily be added to catalog ID data.

That being said, one should not be surprised by a somewhat
lack-luster response, not only because of institutional constraints
on time or budgets, it may be because that particular instrument
lacks operational or performance capabilities.  This is not so in
the case of the Nemours-Kinzing clock, nor the Met's own Compound
Musical Clock by Viet Langenbucher, with automata dating from
circa 1625!

  http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2002.323a-f 

Yours musically,

Jere Ryder - AutaMusique, Ltd.
Summit, New Jersey, USA
amltd@voicenet.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]