A Mechanical instrument of the Orchestrion type. It was invented by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel and first exhibited by him in Vienna in 1804. The instrument was designed to play orchestral music, and various accounts describe it as capable of imitating the sounds of the french horn, clarinet, trumpet, oboe, bassoon, German flute, flageolet, drum, cymbal and triangle. The sounds were actually produced by various flue, reed and free-reed organ pipes, as well as air-driven percussion devices. The Panharmonicon achieved popularity in a period when such mechanical curiosities had great public appeal and were frequently taken on tour; Maelzel’s instrument had many imitators, including a virtually identical instrument (made by a fellow Viennese, Joseph J. Gurk) exhibited in Germany and England in 1810 and 1811.
Maelzel’s Panharmonicon was taken to the USA in 1811 and was exhibited throughout the eastern states between June that year and June 1812 by the Boston organ builder William M. Goodrich, after which it was shipped back to Europe. In 1824 Goodrich built a replica of the instrument for a Boston museum, which again was exhibited in various places for a year.
The repertory of the Panharmonicon consisted largely of popular marches and overtures, as well as pastorales, rondos and similar pieces. Music by Haydn, Mozart and Cherubini (as well as many lesser composers) was also performed on the instrument, the most remarkable example being Beethoven’s ‘Battle Symphony’ (Wellingtons Sieg, 1813), originally written for Maelzel’s instrument and later transcribed for orchestra.
The Panharmonicon was a tour de force of musical instrument technology which later resulted in the Orchestrion. Another instrument of this genre was the Apollonicon.
A.W.J.G. Ord-Hume: Clockwork Music (London and New York, 1973)
B. Owen: The Organ in New England (Winston-Salem, NC, 1979)
BARBARA OWEN, ARTHUR W.J.G. ORD-HUME