Maelzel, Johann Nepomuk (1772–1838)

German inventor. His name is invariably linked to the metronome. He did not invent the machine, but appropriated the idea, developing it in 1814.

He settled in Vienna in 1792 and invented various mechanical instruments. In 1808 he was appointed court mechanician there. Later he lived in Paris and from 1826 in the USA. Beethoven's Battle of Victoria was originally written for Maelzel's ‘Panharmonicon’ and the second movement of the eighth symphony imitates the ticking of the metronome. The ‘Panharmonicon’, first exhibited in Vienna in 1804, was an automatic instrument operated by weights acting on cylinders. Maelzel finished a new version of the ‘Panharmonicon’ in 1812.