Panharmonicon

All music composed, arranged, produced and recorded, R.E.Longley Copyright 2010 EARLDON MUSIC BMI The Panharmonicon was a musical instrument invented in 1805 by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a contemporary and friend of Beethoven. Beethoven composed his piece "Wellington's Victory" (Op. 91) to be played on Mälzel's mechanical orchestral organ and also to commemorate Arthur Wellesley's victory over the French at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. It was one of the first automatic playing machines, similar to the later Orchestrion. The Panharmonicon could imitate many orchestral instruments as well as sounds like gunfire and cannon shots.[1] One instrument was destroyed in the Landesgewerbemuseum in Stuttgart during an air raid in World War II. Friedrich Kaufmann copied this automatic playing machine in 1808, and his family produced Orchestrions from that time on.