The Panharmonicon
The first version of "Wellington's Victory" was not written for an orchestra at all. Johann Mälzel, known today primarily for patenting the metronome, convinced Beethoven to write a short piece commemorating Wellington's victory for his invention, called the panharmonicon. A kind of mechanical contraption that was able to play many of the military band instruments of the day, the panharmonicon never caught on as anything more than a curiosity. Nonetheless, Mälzel toured around Europe showing off Beethoven's work on the mechanical trumpeter and the enthusiasm for the music convinced Beethoven to turn it into a full-blown "victory overture." The composition work stretched through August and September and was completed in the first week of October 1813.
Read more about this topic: Wellington's Victory