Clock types · Special mechanisms

Musical Clocks

Some clocks do more than strike. A musical clock plays whole tunes on bells or tiny organ pipes, and composers from Handel to Haydn wrote music for them.

By David Ray · clocks.fyi

What a musical clock is

A musical clock is a clock with a built-in mechanical instrument that plays recognizable tunes, usually on the hour or the quarters, and often on demand as well. That sets it apart from an ordinary striking or chiming clock, which sounds a set pattern of bell notes. A musical clock may play a dance, a hymn, an opera aria or a short piece written specially for it.

The instrument inside varies. Some musical clocks play a set of small bells, while others contain a miniature pipe organ, in which case they are often called organ clocks or flute clocks. The Antiquarian Horological Society describes 18th-century examples as more than man-sized pieces of furniture, fitted with chimes, pump organs or both, that played excerpts of music at the hour and every quarter.

See also: how ordinary quarter chimes differ from a full musical clock on OnlineClock.app.

How it works: the pinned barrel

The tune is stored on a barrel or roller set with pins. Britannica describes the same idea on the great carillons of the Low Countries and northern France: a wooden barrel or metal cylinder, turned by a weight, carries iron pegs that work levers, which release hammers onto the bells. Britannica calls it one of the earliest examples of a stored program.

In a flute clock, the Musical Instrument Museum in Berlin explains, the pins on the rotating roller press levers connected to the organ pipes, much as an organist presses keys. One barrel can hold several tunes: extra rows of pins sit between the levers, and shifting the roller sideways and locking it brings a different tune into play. Another refinement, which the museum credits to Jacques de Vaucanson, set the pins along a screw thread so the roller crept sideways as it turned, letting even a small barrel play an overture or a piece in several movements.

The timekeeping side of the clock works as usual. In domestic organ clocks, the Berlin museum notes, the music played automatically after the bell struck, and it could also be started whenever the owner wished.

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Bells, organs and the music box

Clocks were tied to music from an early date. The Berlin museum lists astronomical clocks with carillons completed at Strasbourg in 1354, Lübeck in 1405, Olomouc in 1419, Lund in 1441, Prague in 1490 and Münster in 1510. In Britain, Britannica notes, short chime sequences set off by a clock played the role that carillons played on the Continent.

By the 18th century musical clocks were found in homes as well. The Berlin museum says wall clocks with small built-in organs were made in the Black Forest from about 1750 and were affordable for people of modest means, while grander hall clocks with harp or flute works were made for the nobility and wealthy, Berlin itself being a center of the trade. Britannica adds that musical clocks were miniaturized into music boxes from about 1770, chiefly in Switzerland.

See also: the Black Forest's best-known wall clocks on OnlineClock.app.

Charles Clay and Handel

In London, the clockmaker Charles Clay built some of the most ambitious musical clocks of the 18th century. The Antiquarian Horological Society says George Frideric Handel provided music for a series of Clay's clocks and arranged pieces for them, including two from his opera Arianna in Creta. One Clay clock, dated 1730, has been shown at the Handel House Museum in London, the composer's home from 1723 until his death in 1759, on loan from Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

The Royal Collection's clock known as the Temple of the Four Great Monarchies of the World was begun by Clay and made between 1730 and 1743; its four faces stand for the ancient empires of Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome. Its music originally included pieces by Handel, Francesco Geminiani and Arcangelo Corelli. According to Clay's obituary of 1740, he ordered the unfinished machine destroyed so that no one else would waste time and money on it after his death, but the clockmaker John Pyke completed it anyway, and it was shown in London in 1743 before Augusta, Princess of Wales, acquired it.

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a gilt bronze and painted plaque of about 1740 that it links to the Temple of Apollo, a musical organ clock Clay left unfinished at his death. His widow advertised it in November 1741, inviting paying visitors to see it at the couple's former home on the Strand, and the advertisement ran again in August 1743.

The Pyke family continued the tradition. The Society describes a George Pyke musical clock of 1765 at Temple Newsam House in Leeds that strikes the hours and has a pipe organ playing eight tunes.

Haydn, Mozart and the flute clock

Flute clocks attracted leading composers. The Berlin museum says Haydn, Mozart and C.P.E. Bach all composed for these instruments in the second half of the 18th century.

The MAK museum in Vienna holds a flute clock whose organ mechanism was designed around 1790 by Primitivus Niemecz, librarian and court chaplain at the Esterházy court. Its organ plays seven melodies by Haydn. The mechanism was later combined with an unrelated mantel clock, attributed to Peter Rau, of 1810 to 1820.

How to recognize one

Open the case and look for a second mechanism alongside the timekeeping one: a pinned barrel or roller, with levers above it that work hammers on bells or the valves of small organ pipes. A clock that plays more than one tune will have some way of shifting that barrel sideways to change the music. And of course the surest test is to listen: a musical clock plays a recognizable melody, not just a chime.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between a chiming clock and a musical clock?

A chiming clock plays a short, fixed bell pattern, usually at the quarters. A musical clock plays whole tunes, from a pinned barrel, on bells or organ pipes, and can often choose between several tunes.

Did famous composers write music for clocks?

Yes. Handel supplied and arranged music for Charles Clay's musical clocks in the 18th century, and Haydn, Mozart and C.P.E. Bach composed for flute clocks in the second half of the century.

How does a musical clock change tunes?

Several tunes are pinned on one barrel, with the pins for each tune offset slightly. Shifting the barrel sideways and locking it lines up a different set of pins with the levers.

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