Maelzel's Mechanical Wonders

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1838, the crew of American ship Otis, docked at a harbor in Venezuela, discovered that one of their passengers had died in his cabin. He was the German inventor and one-time business associate of Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel.

Maelzel was born in Regensburg in 1772, the son of an organ builder. Perhaps a childhood spent among the inner workings of pipe organs predisposed him to become an inventor of mechanical instruments. At 20, Maelzel moved to Vienna, and began peddling mechanical organs that could play short tunes by Haydn and Mozart on demand.

Maelzel didn’t stop there: he invented entire mechanical orchestras and other wonders for display in a museum he opened in 1812. Beethoven even composed Wellington’s Victory, a piece for Maelzel’s mechanical orchestra. The two collaborators soon fell out over who owned what, and Beethoven re-orchestrated Wellington’s Victory for human performers.

Maelzel took his contraptions on tour and spent a good deal of his later life exhibiting them in the United States and the West Indies. Today, Maelzel’s musical inventions are regarded as obsolete curios — with one exception: he’s credited with finessing and popularizing the use of the metronome.

Music Played in Today's Program

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Flute Clock Pieces; mechanical Flute Clock c. 1800; Candide 31093 (out-of-print LP recording)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Wellington’s Victory; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 453 713

On This Day

Births

• 1896 - French composer Jean Rivier, in Villemomble

Deaths

• 1838 - German inventor of the metronome, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, 65, on board the brig Otis in the harbour of La Guiara, Venezuela, en route to Philadelphia. Beethoven’s orchestral battle-symphony, Wellington’s Victory, was originally written for one of Maelzel’s mechanical music-machines.

Premieres

• 1733 - Handel: oratorio Athalia, in Oxford (Julian date: July 10)

• 1938 - Hindemith: ballet, St. Francis, at Covent Garden in London, with composer conducting (the suite Nobilissima Visone is drawn from this score)

• 1971 - William Bolcom: Frescoes in Montreal, with Bruce Mather (piano and harmonium) and Pierrette LePage (piano and harpsichord)

• 1983 - Thomas Oboe Lee: Morango … almost a tango for string quartet, at the Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by the Composers in Red Sneakers ensemble