Clockwork Game: The Illustrious Career of a Chess-Playing Automaton

Here’s a nice recording of Wellington’s Sieg, in its orchestral setting. As far as I can tell, there are no existing recordings of its setting for the Panharmonicon.

“Ta ta lieber lieber Maelzel” — there’s a longstanding story that Beethoven made this “musical joke” first into a lighthearted little canon, (Canon WoO 162, aka the Mälzelkanon), and then into the second movement of his Eighth Symphony. Unfortunately, the story’s been debunked, and the canon attributed to Anton Schindler, but the idea of it, as an example of banter between Maelzel and Beethoven, is something I thought represented their often-antagonistic relationship well.