1. Scherzo in G major, WoO 33/2
2. Allegro in G major, WoO 33/3
3. Allegro in C major, WoO 33/4
4. Menuett in C major, WoO 33/5

Customers receive a full score with both parts together as well as separate primo- and secondo-only scores.

Various kinds of automata, with and without music, were in vogue in the eighteenth century to delight and amuse the aristocracy. Like the automatic chiming music emanating from carillon towers in the Low Countries, music boxes and musical clocks were providing new ways of instantly creating music on demand.

In German it is called Spieluhr (music box, musical clock), Flötenuhr (clock with small organ flute pipes), or Laufwerk (drive mechanism in a clock). In English it is referred to as musical clock, flute clock, or mechanical organ.

What makes the musical clock distinctive from the other automata is the music that was composed for it by C. P. E. Bach, Beethoven, Handel*, Haydn* and Mozart. Beethoven was commissioned to write five pieces by Count Josef von Deym, owner of the Müller Wax Museum in Vienna. Count von Deym has already commissioned three Fantasies (K. 594, 608, 616) for the musical clock from Mozart in 1791.

The five pieces by Beethoven are:

1. WoO 33/1: Adagio (in F) c. 1799
2. WoO 33/2: Scherzo (in G) c. 1799
3. WoO 33/3: Allegro (in G) c. 1799
4. WoO 33/4: Allegro (in C) c. 1794
5. WoO 33/5 Menuett (in C) c. 1794

As the dates indicate, the pieces appeared in two sets, #1–3 and #4–5. The manuscript of the first set is in the Grasnick Collection of the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek of Berlin; the second was lost in World War II. Fortunately, Georg Schünemann published a piano version of all five pieces in 1940 (Stücke für die Spieluhr, Schott, 1940), the only known source for #4 and #5. (The catalogue reference "WoO" means Werk ohne Opuszahl = work without opus number.)

This edition of #2–5 for carillon duet strives to keep the musical essence of Beethoven as well as the light timbre of the musical clock. If a carillon possesses a fifth octave of treble bells, there are several places where echo passages could be played one octave higher. The phrase and dynamic marks are offered by the transcriber. There is no specific order for the performance of the pieces.

* Handel's complete "Clock Music" (sets I & II, 17 pieces, transcribed by Beverly Buchanan and William De Turk) and Haydn's complete "Werke für das Laufwerk" (32 pieces, transcribed by Albert Gerken) have been published by and are available from the GCNA.

—William De Turk