The Victorians were fascinated by machinery, and it came as no surprise that they would apply their technological skills to the art of musical reproduction. Queen Victoria was presented with a musical bustle that would play the National Anthem whenever she sat down on it.

Other examples of Victorian mechanical music included the barrel organ and elaborate music boxes, allowing performances at home without having to learn to play an instrument beforehand. The very rich could install an Orchestrel, an elaborate mechanical organ augmented with other instruments.

The player piano involved a small degree of player input concerning volume and tempo, but the notes were pre-defined by piano roles. Ernest Newman wrote a whole book about it, with special reference to the art of pedalling. Its repertoire was vast: classics, ragtime, jazz. When 'Yes We Have No Bananas' was at the height of its fame, four machines worked solidly for three months to produce enough rolls to satisfy demand.

But the Orchestrel and player piano were rendered almost instantly obsolete by the invention of the gramophone, which had the added advantage of being portable in its wind-up form. A further blow to mechanical music was struck by Mussolini, who ordered Italian organ-grinders (and their monkeys) to return home, to preserve the national dignity.

However, player pianos are being preserved and restored by enthusiasts like Mr Scheffler, who has tracked down every surviving example worldwide and persuaded musicians such as the pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Dame Myra Hess and Fats Waller to record new rolls, to help keep the medium alive.

Mechanical music is also being preserved thanks to the efforts of electronic composers, working in pristine laboratories in white coats, their music recorded on multiple rolls of reel-to-reel tape. Meanwhile, mechanical instruments are still to be found working at fairgrounds and seaside resorts.