Amazing history lesson in an Apple support document, via Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels
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The opening graf:
The earliest seeds of modern electronic synthesizers began in the twilight years of the 19th century. In 1897, an American inventor named Thaddeus Cahill was issued a patent to protect the principle behind an instrument known as the Telharmonium, or Dynamophone. Weighing in at 200 tons, this mammoth electronic instrument was driven by 12 steam-powered electromagnetic generators. It was played in real time using velocity-sensitive keys and, amazingly, was able to generate several different sounds simultaneously. The Telharmonium was presented to the public in a series of “concerts” held in 1906. Christened “Telharmony,” this music was piped into the public telephone network, because no public address systems were available at the time
I think this is the instrument I heard about, that they connected the output directly to the telephone network to broadcast a concert.
When everyone connected their phones, it gave the instrument a certain output impedence, however, during the concert, some people got bored and hung up, changing the impedence. Eventually enough people had hung up that there was far too much current going out to people’s phones that they started catching fire. 
I can’t find anything about that part online, so no idea if that’s real now…
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Who invented Patents?
Did they ever make a desktop module?
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B clone incoming
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FTFY, for historical accuracy.
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For precursors to the Telharmonium, and much of the story of the early development of electronic music after the Telharmonium see this website :
I posted about this website before over in this thread – Survival of Old Tech.
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