Word: panharmonicon
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...Hero of Alexandria wrote a book, De Automatis, that described a mechanical theater with robot figures that marched and danced in various temple ceremonies. But the king of all robotmakers was Johann Nepomuk Maelzel (1772-1838), creator of the metronome, who also constructed an automatic orchestra called the Panharmonicon, which could simulate violins, cellos, clarinets, flutes, trumpets, drums, cymbals and triangle. For this contraption, the inventor commissioned Beethoven to compose his Vittoria Symphony, Maelzel also toured America with a robot chess player that was actually operated from inside by a hunchbacked Alsatian dwarf named Schlumberger...
...German flimflam man named Johann Nepomuk Maelzel appeared in the U.S. and began wowing the natives with his traveling show of mechanical marvels. His treasures included an automated trumpet player, a device called the panharmonicon that could duplicate the sound of a 40-piece orchestra (playing Beethoven) and an elaborate diorama showing the burning of Moscow. But Maelzel's star attraction was a hoax: a chess automaton nicknamed the Turk that took on all comers-and was every bit as talented as the human player cleverly concealed within it. That role was filled by William Schlumberger, an Alsatian hunchback...
...Battle Symphony," written in 1813 when the composer was at the height of his powers (he had just finished the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies), is a fascinating but vulgar and bombastic ode to Wellington's victory over Napoleon. Frankly composed to make money and originally intended for the panharmonicon, a sort of early stereo machine built by a German inventor in which nine different types of instruments were operated mechanically, the piece includes a rumbling God Save the King, an absurdly tinkling For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, an immense eruption of drums and other battle effects...
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