DICE MUSIC

IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

BY STEPHEN A. HEDGES

FROM I757 to I8I2 at least twentymusical dice games were pub-

lished in Europe, some in several editions and languages. All made
it possibleforthepersonignorantofmusic to writeminuets,marches,
polonaises, contredances, waltzes and so forthby selecting bits of
prefabricated music through the use of chance operations. These
publications are notable in that they offer,two centuries earlier
than the twentieth-century 'advent' of aleatory music, methods by
which chance-determinedmusic may be composed.
Leonard Ratner has written,'The amusement affordedby these
musical games of chance bespeaks pure dilettantism. . .'.1 Rococo
attempts at devizing a mechanical means of composition are in
accordance withthe rationalistictemperamentofthe time,as shown
by the many treatiseson music published during this period that
include discussions of mathematics. The treatises and criticisms
of Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (I7I8-98) are filled with mathe-
matical analyses of music. More noteworthyis the relatingof music
to natural sciences that is found in the works of Jean-Philippe
Rameau. Most important,however, was the general public enthu-
siasm for mathematics. Without the eighteenth century's great
interestin mathematicsthere would have been no incentiveforthe
creation of such unusual means of composition as dice games. Of
course, the separation and codification of musical elements that
made the dice games feasible were only possible because of the
simple and symmetricalnature of Rococo music. A complete list
ofthe musical dice games followsthisarticle,includingseveral works
,which are no longer extant and thus cannot be discussed. Enough
survive,however,to demonstratea curious musical practice.
The firstof these musical oddities was also the firstpublication
ofJohannPhilipp Kirnberger(I 72 I -83), Der allezeitfertige Menuetten-
undPolonoisenkomponist (Berlin, I 757). Since this publication was to
serve as a model formany of the succeeding musical dice games, it
will be discussed in more detail than mostof the worksmentionedin
thisarticle. The 'Minuet Composer' allowed the novice to compose
eithera polonaise, consistingofone six-bar period and one eight-bar
period, or a minuet and trio, both eight bars in length. A throwof
two dice determinedwhich bar of music would be used next as the
I "'Ars combinatoria": Chance and Choice in Eighteenth-century Music', Studies in
Music: a Tributeto Karl Geiringer
Eighteenth-century Birthday,ed. H. C. Robbins
on his Seventieth
Landon & Roger Chapman, London, I970, p. 345.

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compositionwas constructed.In his introductionKirnbergerwrote:
Anyonewho is familiaronly withdice and numbersand can write
down notesis capable of composingas manyof the aforesaidlittle
piecesas he desires.
These words were paraphrased in the introductionto nearly every
succeeding musical dice game; theyleave no doubt as to the public
forwhich these works were intended.
The 'Minuet Composer' had two tables of numbers,one forthe
polonaises, one forthe minuets.The last 29 pages of the publication
were to be cut up into a deck of cards with one bar of music (one
soprano line and one bass line for the polonaise and minuet, two
soprano lines and one bass line for the trio on each card. The
'composer' tossed two dice, then consulted the appropriate table by
moving down the side of the table to the line correspondingto the
bar he needed (e.g. forthe second bar he would go to the second line
fromthe top) and then moving across the table to the column that
correspondedto the number showingon the dice. In the intersection
ofthe line and the column he would finda number. It was then only
a matterof findingthe card that bore the same number and trans-
ferringthe music on the card to a piece of manuscriptpaper.
Obviously, Kirnbergerhad writtena polonaise and a minuetand
trio, composed ten variants, segmented the pieces into individual
bars and camouflaged the whole thingwith a table of numbers.The
minuet would always be in D major with a fixedharmonic progres-
sion and the trio would always be in D minor. The melody was the
real variable. There were I I6 possible melodies for the firstperiod
of the polonaise, I I8 possibilitiesfor the second period, and I I32
possibilitiesforthe minuet and trio. Ratner observesthat the entire
population of eighteenth-centuryEurope could have spent a life-
time playing Kirnberger's dice game without exhausting all the
possibilities.2In fact, Kirnberger asked a respected mathematician
named Gumpertz to calculate how many possible compositions
could be constructed.Gumpertz arrived at a figureof one trillion.
It is small wonder that Charles Burney accused Kirnbergerhimself
of being 'more ambitious of the character of an algebraist, than a
musician of genius'.3
The next dice game to appear was Ludusmelothedicus, an anony-
mous work published in Paris around I758. This game went one
step furtherthan the Kirnberger by fragmentingthe bars into
individual notes. (Either thismethod or Kirnberger'swas used in all
succeeding dice games.) The user of this game could constructan
eight-bar minuet and eight-bar trio in either D major or A minor.
There were a table of numbersforeach bar and one complete set of
2 op. cit., p- 344.
3 The PresentState of Music in Germany,the
Netherlands,and the UnitedProvinces,London,
1775, ii. 2I3.

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tables for each key. The 'composer' tossed two dice, disregarding
any numbers above nine, and counted fromthe next number up to
nine to findthe correctnumber on the table (e.g. fora throwof 2 he
would count '3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9'). The number on the table referredto
another table of numbered notes. The user then continued counting
by nines until he had accumulated enough notes to fillthe bar. This
procedure was used fordeterminingboth soprano and bass.
What the anonymous author had done was to compose a little
minuet with eight variants and then distribute the notes of each
bar on a table with nine notes from other variants placed
between each note of the melody. This guaranteed that one of the
nine versionswould result no matter where one started among the
firstnine numbers on the table. For example, the firstbar of the
first variant would begin in space i on the table where the
firstnote of the bar would be found. The appropriate number of
spaces later, the second note would be found, nine spaces later the
thirdnote would be found and so on until the three-beatbar was
complete. Nine spaces afterthe space containing the last note of the
bar an 'X' would be placed, indicating that the firstmeasure had
been completed. The second variant would be distributedlikewise,
beginningwith the second space, and so on. A later edition in I 787
dispensed with the use ofdice in favourofa more suitable nine-sided
top.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Einfallforwritingdouble counter-
point also used a nine-sidedtop. This workwas published at the end
of the firstpart of the thirdvolume of FriedrichWilhelm Marpurg's
Beitrdgezur Aufnahme
Historisch-kritische derMusik (Berlin, I 754-78).
Bach's method, presented on pages I67 to 170, resulted in only six
bars in duple time. Marpurg followed Bach's presentationwith four
pages of mathematical explanation in which he pointed out the
difference between Kirnberger's work and Bach's (Bach used
individual notes in the manner of the Ludus), explained the trickof
the game, and discussed probabilities. Marpurg's explanation was
followedby six tables of treblenotes (one table per bar) and six bass
tables. When the added figurationis removed, the resultis six bars
of first-speciescounterpoint invertible at the octave, making this
game unique.
The only English-language musical dice game was the work of
Piere [sic] Hoegi (?-?). His Tabular System(London, I770?) was
designed to compose a minuet and trio of eight bars per section by
the random choice of a number from8 to 48. Otherwise, the game
was similar to Kirnberger's, as was the next dice game to be pub-
lished, Maximilian Stadler's Table pour composer(Paris, no
date). The date given for this work in E. L. Gerber's Historisch-
biographischesLexikonder Tonkiinstler is I 780, which places it before
dice game publications attributedto Mozart and Haydn. This is an
important point, since all three publications use the same table of

182
numbers and Haydn's even uses the same music, simply re-
orchestratedfor two violins and bass.
The Giocofilharmonico attributed to Haydn was published by
Marescalchi in Naples in two editions, in I793 and I8I2, of which
only the I 793 edition is extant. The subtitleof thisedition mentions
trios,but only minuets have been found.4 Since this publication is
no more than a re-orchestrationof Stadler's dice game, it seems
unlikely that Haydn was really involved, and it may be that this
game was 'composed' by the publisher, though there is no firm
evidence to support thissuspicion. Mozart's authorshipof two other
dice games (K6 Anhang C 30.0I) has also been disputed. The first
and more famous of these produced contredances and is usually
cited as having been published by Nikolaus SimrockofBonn in I 796.
The otheris less well known, produced waltzes, and was supposedly
firstpublished byJohann Michael Goetz ofWorms about i8oo. Both
of these workshad in fact already been published by Johann Julius
Hummel of Amsterdam and Berlin in I 793, and Simrock also pub-
lished the waltz game just before the contredance game.5 There is
also the distinct possibilitythat Goetz plagarized the waltz game
fromSimrock. Goetz's waltz game and Simrock's contredance game
were extremelysimilar, presentingthe text in fourlanguages (Ger-
man, French, Italian and English), the German textsbeing identical
except for the addition of one clause in the Goetz explaining that
the minuet should be repeated afterthe trio. Whereas Simrock was
a well-knownhorn player who had just begun publishing in I 796
(the waltz and contredance games were his 48th and 49th publica-
tions respectively), Goetz was apparently a publisher of dubious
morals, since he was sued for plagiarism in I788-9 by Artaria of
Vienna. It is probable, then, that Simrock took his publications
fromHummel and was plagarized in turn by Goetz. Whether the
original Hummel publications were actually writtenby Mozart is
another matter. It is entirelypossible that they were writtenby a
clandestine composer and that Mozart's name was used simply to
boost sales. But in view of the lack of evidence to support a denial of
Mozart's authorship, these games are still being published under
his name.6
Another publication of some importance intervened between
Stadler's and Haydn's very similar dice games. In I788, Michael
Johann Friedrich Wiedeburg (I720-i800) published his Musika-
lischesCIarien-Siel.This work was published by Georg Winter, who
had published Kirnberger's game, and was based on all of
KirnhergersrIle s. Niedeburg admitted in the preface that he was

4 See, however, Thomas Hay O'Bci1rei.

q(40,369969 .152 Dice-music Trios'. TI-lei
Musical Times,cix (I968), 911-13, which presents 'dice-trios' attributed to Haydn.
5 Otto Erich Deutsch, 'Mit Wurfel komponieren', Zeilscrl-ift fur Mfusikwissensc/iaJi,
xii
(1929/30), 595-
6 Musikalisches Wuirfelspiel,Mainz (Schott), 1956; Ilusik mit Wurfeln, Amsterdam
(Heuwekemeijer),1957.

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 attemptingto apply Kirnberger's method to larger forms,which is
exactly what he did; this work produces 36-bar organ preludes for
use by organistsin countrychurches.
Following the Mozart, several treatises which are no longer
extant were published. Of these, the four publications of Antonio
Calegari (I 75 7-I 828) attestto the popularityof musical dice games.
His original Giocopitagorico was printedin Venice by Sebastian Valle
in I8oI and used Kirnberger's method of composition. The follow-
ing year Calegari moved to France and published a French trans-
lation ofhis originalgame, L'Artdecomposer. This publication received
so much favourable attentionin Germany that he then published a
German version,which he dedicated to Josephine Bonaparte. This
was immediately followed by a new dice game entitled Wie die
Wuerfelfallen!,which used three dice. Unfortunately,there is no
clue as to how the three dice were employed.
The last dated dice game other than the second edition of the
Haydn (i 8I2) was Barememusical(i 8II), attributed to Giovanni
Catrufo (I 77 I-c. I 820). There are several otherworkswhich are not
dated. One, a Musikspielbearing the name ofJ. C. Graf, produced
marches 'for the piano or other instruments'.This publication is
something of an enigma. On the surface, one would assume that
the composer was Johann Christian Graf, a Mainz musician of
some repute. Grafdied about I 745, and Schottdid not begin publish-
ing until I770, making this dice game yet another publication of
suspicious origin.
All of these treatiseswere manifestationsof the temperamentof
the 'Age of Reason'. The trend was toward explaining all events
through scientificinvestigation,a practice that depended on new
developments in the fields of mathematics and science. The first
half of the eighteenth century witnessed the publication of such
investigationsinto abstract concepts as George Berkeley'sA Treatise
Concerning thePrinciplesof Human Knowledge(I 7 IO), Jean-Philippe
Rameau's Nouveau systemede musiquetheorique(I 726) and David
Hume's A Treatiseon Human Nature (I739). The latter half of the
centurysaw the cataloguing of informationin such publications as
(I 754),
(I 75I), Samuel Johnson'sDictionary
Diderot's Encyclop6die
Voltaire's Dictionnaire
philosophique(I 764), Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
Dictionnairede musique(I 767) and the firstedition of the Encyclopedia
Britannica(I 771) as well as such scientificlandmarks as Benjamin
Franklin's experiments with electricity (I 75I), the beginnings of
excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum (I 763) the invention of
the spinningjenny (I 770), the steam engine (I 769) and the electric
battery (I 775) and the discovery of oxygen (I 774) and hydrogen
(I 776). The Pascal-Fermat letters of a century before had
developed thefirstprobabilitytheories.From I 7 I 3Jacques Bernoulli
was pioneeringpermutationand combination theories.The 'galant'
middle class in Europe was playing with mathematics. In this

I84
atmosphere of investigation and cataloguing, a systematicdevice
that would seem to make it possible for anyone to write music was
practically guaranteed popularity.
Of the many mathematical theoriesdeveloped in the eighteenth
century,the dice games were based on the principlesofpermutation
(re-arrangementof elements) and combination (addition and/or
substitutionof selected elements) or ars combinatoria, the systematic
re-arrangingof materials in as many ways as possible under given
conditions. In other words, ars combinatoria is the 'art of combining'
a given number ofelementsin as many combinationsas possible and
still have the resultsmeet certain conditions. In music, this can be
translated into arranging the notes of a scale into one bar in such
a way that theyoutline a certain chord. When several such bars are
placed together,each with a previouslyspecifiedharmony,a simple
piece results.This is exactly the method of constructionused in the
musical dice games.
Ars combinatoria is essentially a mathematical concept, but the
simple, clear, symmetrical nature of Rococo music was easily
adapted to such a concept. Contemporary treatisesindicate that
ars combinatoriawas not only a potent tool forunlockingthe imagina-
tion of the studentof composition but was in fact an importantand
establishedmethodofmusical compositionin theeighteenthcentury,
providing inexhaustible melodic material. Francesco Galeazzi
(I758-i8I9) in his Elementiteorico-practici
di musica(Rome, I79i-6)
calculates that by using only the eight notes of the octave and the
rhythmic values of minim, crotchet and quaver one can write
620,448,40I ,733,239,439,36o,ooo two-bar figures. The musical
dice games are the embodimentof thisconcept and as such represent
an extremeexample ofthe marriage of mathematicsand music.

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MUSICAL DICE GAMES

Kirnberger,Johann Philipp,Derallezeitfertige
Menuetten-
undPolonoisen-
komponist ['The ever-readyminuetand polonaise composer'],
Berlin(Winter),I 757.
anon., LudusMelothedicus ou le jeu de dez harmonique
['A methodfor
melodies,or the harmoniousdice game'], Paris (de la Cheva-
diere),c.I 758.
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, 'Einfalleinen doppeltenContrapunct
in derOctavevonsechsTactenzu machenohnedie Regelndavon
zu wissen' ['A methodformakingsix bars of double counter-
pointat theoctavewithoutknowingtherules'],Berlin(Lange),
I 754-78.
Hoegi, Piere,A TabularSystem
Whereby theArtofComposing MinuetsIs
madeso Easy thatAnyPerson,without theleastknowledge
ofMusick,
maycompose tenthousand,
all different,
and in themostPleasingand
CorrectManner,London (Welcker),[I 770?].

I85
Stadler, Maximilian. Table pourcomposer et des Triosa
des menuets
avecdeuxdezajouer,['A tableforcomposingminuetsand
l'infinie;
trios to infinity,by playing with two dice'], Paris (Wenck),
[ I 780?] .
Wiedeburg, Michael Johann Friedrich, MusikalischesCharten-Spiel ex
G dur['Musical card game in G major'], Zurich (Winter), I788.
Haydn, Franz Joseph, Giocofilharmonico, facile per comporre
o sia maniera
uninfinitonumero trioanchesenzaspaereil contrapunto
di minuettie ['The
game of harmony, or an easy method for composing an infinite
number of minuet-trios without any knowledge of counter-
point'], Naples (Marescalchi), I793.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Anleitung zum Componiren von Walzernso
zweier Wu'rfelohneetwasvonderMusik oder
vielemanwill vermittlest
Composition ['Instructionin the compositionofas many
zu verstehen
waltzes as one desires with two dice, without understanding
anythingabout music or composition'], Berlin (Hummel), I793.
Anleitungzum Componiren vonPolonoisen... , Berlin (Hummel) ,
'793-
Hayn, Friedrich Gottlob, Anleitung mitWurfelnAnglaisenzu componieren
['Instruction in composing English (contredances) with two
dice'], Dresden, I798.
Fielder, C. H., MusicalischesWiirfelspieloderder unersch6pfiiche Ecos-
saisen-Componist ['The musical dice game, or the inexhaustible
ecossaise composer'], Hamburg, i8oi.
Calegari, Antonio. Giocopitagoricomusicalecol quale potra ornuno,anco
senza sapere di Musica, formarsiuna seria quasi infinitadi picciole
Ariette, e Duettiniper tuttili Caratteri,Rondo,Preghiere, Polacche,Cori,
ec., il tuttocoll-accompagnamento o Arpa,o altriStrumenti
del Pianoforte
['Pythagorean musical game by which everyone,without know-
ledge of music, can forma seeminglyinfiniteseries of littlearias,
and duets for character pieces, rondos, prayers, polonaises,
choruses etc., all to the accompaniment of a piano or harp or
other instruments'],Venice (Valle), I8o i.
,L'art decomposer de la musiquesansenconnaire leselemens['The art of
composing music without knowledge of the principles'], Paris
(Boudin), I802.
, Wie die Wuirfelfallen! Ein Scherzder Tonkunst, ummitdreiWuirfeln
leichtWalzerzu setzen['How the dice fall! A musicaljoke by which
waltzes can easily be composed with three dice'], Brunswick
(Spehr), I 802.
[Catrufo, Giovanni], Barememusical,ou l'art de composer la Musique sans
en connaitre lesprincipes par J_.A.S.C.['The musical ready-reckoner,
or the art ofcomposing music withoutknowledgeofthe principles,
by J.A.S.C.'], Paris (Colas), i8i i.

UNDATED (eighteenth century)

Fischer, Ludwig, MusikalischesWiirfelspieloder Kunst, durch Wiirfel
Kindern(-undauchGrossen!) leichtundauf angenehme WeisedieNoten
im Violin-undBass-Schluissel zu lehrnen['A musical dice game, or
the art of teaching children (and also grown-ups) in an easy and
pleasant way, throughdice, the notes ofthe trebleand bass clefs'],
Weimar (Wentzel).
Graf,J. C., MusikspieloderTabelle,unzahligeMdrschefiirPianoforte oder
andereInstrumente mittlestWiirfelzu erfinden ['A music game or
table for inventing countless marches for piano or other instru-
ments by means of dice'], Mainz (Schott).

i 86
Lange, E. F. de, Le Totonharmonique ou nouveaujeu dehazard ['The quick
harmony,or a new game of chance'], Paris (Desoer).
Ricci, Pasquale, Au plus heureauxjeux harmonique pour composerdes
minuets au sortd'undex ['A most pleasing game of
ou descontredances
harmony for composing minuets or contredances by a throw of
dice'], n.p. (apparently published by the composer).

I87