← A. Inventions, No. 2
Leopoldus Rademacher (c. 1665–1721)
Automated Muselar
1700–1
Ash case with French polished mahogany veneer and lacquered edges, ivory keytops, fruitwood stops with staghorn overlays, poplar indicators with boxwood inserts, and internal mechanisms in brass and steel. 12 × 9½ × 12⅝". Collection of the author.
Five of the thirty known musical instruments by Leopoldus Friedrich Rademacher (c.1665–1721), an eccentric inventor and sometime court musician to the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I of Austria.
While the Rademacher name had been associated with fine keyboard instruments for four generations, beginning with the harpsichords and virginals of Charles de Rodemack (?1572) that were known to both Couperin and Sainte-Colombe, Leopoldus was always more innovator than musician, and his daring reorganization of not only the keyboard but the musical scale posed impossible challenges that destined his work for obscurity. Most famous of these is the automated muselar shown above, probably from 1700–1, featuring a three octave keyboard and nineteen stops, and replacing the diatonic scale with the one of Leopoldus’ own design that included six accidentals instead of five. Only one piece of music is thought to have been playable in Leopoldus’ ‘C♯♭’ scale, the third of the ‘planet’ suites by Buxtehude that was described by Johann Mattheson, but for which no score survives.
Published December 4, 2022. Copyright © 2022 Jonathan Hoefler.
About
The objects in the Apocryphal Inventions series are technical chimeras, intentional misdirections coaxed from the generative AI platform Midjourney. Instead of iterating on the system’s early drafts to create ever more accurate renderings of real-world objects, creator Jonathan Hoefler subverted the system to refine and intensify its most intriguing misunderstandings, pushing the software to create beguiling, aestheticized nonsense. Some images have been retouched to make them more plausible; others have been left intact, appearing exactly as generated by the software. The accompanying descriptions, written by the author, offer fictitious backstories rooted in historical fact, which suggest how each of these inventions might have come to be.
These images represent some of AI’s most intriguing answers to confounding questions, an inversion of the more pressing debate in which it is humanity that must confront the difficult and existential questions posed by artificial intelligence.
Previously:
No. 1. ‘Model P’ Printing Telegraph
Next:
No. 3. Ticket Machines
