![ThomasBlochHandsGlassharmonica low notes on left and high notes on right](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/ThomasBlochHandsGlassharmonica_low_notes_on_left_and_high_notes_on_right.jpg)
The glass harmonica, also known as the glass armonica, glass harmonium, bowl organ, hydrocrystalophone, or simply the armonica or harmonica (derived from , ''harmonia'', the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word for harmony), is a type of
musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
that uses a series of
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
bowls
Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...
or goblets graduated in size to produce musical
tones by means of
friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:
*Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of t ...
(instruments of this type are known as
friction idiophone
Friction idiophones is designation 13 in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification. These idiophones produce sound by being rubbed either against each other or by means of a non-sounding object. Instruments of this type a ...
s). It was invented in 1761 by
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
.
Names
![Glass harp in Rome](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Glass_harp_in_Rome.arp.jpg)
The name "glass harmonica" (also "glass armonica", "glassharmonica"; ''harmonica de verre'', ''harmonica de Franklin'', ''armonica de verre'', or just ''harmonica'' in French; ''Glasharmonika'' in German; ''harmonica'' in Dutch) refers today to any instrument played by rubbing glass or crystal goblets or bowls. The alternative instrument consisting of a set of wine glasses (usually tuned with water) is generally known in English as "musical glasses" or the "
glass harp
A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrillon or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses.
It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Each ...
".
When
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
invented his mechanical version of the instrument in 1761, he called it the armonica, based on the Italian word ''armonia'', which means "harmony".
The unrelated free-reed wind instrument aeolina, today called the "
harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...
", was not invented until 1821, sixty years later.
The word "hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica" is also recorded, composed of
Greek roots to mean something like "harmonica to produce music for the soul by fingers dipped in water" (''hydro-'' for "water", ''daktul-'' for "finger", ''psych-'' for "soul"). The ''
Oxford Companion to Music
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' is a music reference book in the Book series, series of Oxford Companions produced by the Oxford University Press. It was originally conceived and written by Percy Scholes and published in 1938. Since then, it ...
'' mentions that this word is "the longest section of the Greek language ever attached to any musical instrument, for a reader of ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' wrote to that paper in 1932 to say that in his youth he heard a performance of the instrument where it was called a ''hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica''." The
Museum of Music
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...
in Paris displays a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.
Forerunners
Because its sounding portion is made of glass, the glass harmonica is a type of
crystallophone
A crystallophone is a musical instrument that produces sound from glass.
One of the best known crystallophones is the glass harmonica, a set of rotating glass bowls which produce eerie, clear tones when rubbed with a wet finger. Musical glass ...
. The phenomenon of rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a wine goblet to produce tones is documented back to
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
times;
Galileo
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
considered the phenomenon (in his ''Two New Sciences''), as did
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans ...
.
The Irish musician
Richard Pockrich is typically credited as the first to play an instrument composed of glass vessels (glass harp) by rubbing his fingers around the rims.
Beginning in the 1740s, he performed in London on a set of upright goblets filled with varying amounts of water. His career was cut short by a fire in his room, which killed him and destroyed his apparatus.
Edward Delaval
Edward Hussey Delaval (born 1729; died 14 August 1814 in Westminster) was a British scholar and natural philosopher.
Life
He was the third son of Francis Blake Delaval and his wife Rhoda Apreece. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, ...
, a friend of Benjamin Franklin and a fellow of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, extended the experiments of Pockrich, contriving a set of glasses better tuned and easier to play.
[Brands, H. W. (2000) "The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin" First Anchor Books Edition, March 2002 ] During the same decade,
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he g ...
also attracted attention playing a similar instrument in England.
Franklin's armonica
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edward Delaval at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
in England in May 1761. Franklin worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by
Marianne Davies
Marianne Davies (1743 or 1744 – c. 1818) was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies. She was a singer who also played flute and harpsichord.
In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the g ...
.
Writing to his friend Giambatista Beccaria in Turin, Italy, Franklin wrote from London in 1762 about his musical instrument:
"The advantages of this instrument are, that its tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they may be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, being well tuned, never again wants tuning. In honour of your musical language, I have borrowed from it the name of this instrument, calling it the Armonica."
In Franklin's treadle-operated version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot pedal. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with water-moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note: A (dark blue), B (purple), C (red), D (orange), E (yellow), F (green), G (blue), and
accidentals
In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (), flat (), and natural () symbols, among others, ma ...
were marked in white. With the Franklin design, it is possible to play ten glasses simultaneously if desired, a technique that is very difficult if not impossible to execute using upright goblets. Franklin also advocated the use of a small amount of powdered chalk on the fingers, which under some acidic water conditions helped produce a clear tone.
Some attempted improvements on the armonica included adding keyboards,
placing pads between the bowls to reduce
sympathetic vibrations, and using
violin bow
In music, a bow is a tensioned stick which has hair (usually horse-tail hair) coated in rosin (to facilitate friction) affixed to it. It is moved across some part (generally some type of strings) of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which ...
s.
Another supposed improvement, based upon later observations of non-playing instruments, was to have the glasses rotate into a trough of water. However,
William Zeitler
William Zeitler (born 1954 in St. Louis) is a performer on the armonica, or glass harmonica,About William.
williamzeitler.com, 2009. ...
put this idea to the test by rotating an armonica cup into a basin of water; the water has the same effect as putting water in a wine glass – it changes the pitch. With several dozen glasses, each a different diameter and thus rotating with a different depth, the result would be musical cacophony. This modification also made it much harder to make the glass "speak", and muffled the sound.
In 1975, an original armonica was acquired by the
Bakken Museum
The Bakken is a science museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, founded in 1975 by Earl Bakken, the co-founder of Medtronic. The exhibits present a history and explanation of electricity and electromagnetism.
Exhibits
Approxima ...
in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
and put on display, albeit without its original glass bowls (they were destroyed during shipment).
It was purchased through a musical instrument dealer in France, from the descendants of Mme. Brillon de Jouy, a neighbor of Benjamin Franklin's from 1777 to 1785, when he lived in the Paris suburb of
Passy
Passy () is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.
Passy was a commune on the outskirts of Paris. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around whic ...
.
Some 18th- and 19th-century specimens of the armonica have survived into the 21st century.
Franz Mesmer
Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called " ani ...
also played the armonica and used it as an integral part of his
Mesmerism
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all livi ...
.
An original Franklin armonica is in the archives at the
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, having been donated in 1956 by Franklin's descendants after "the children took great delight in breaking the bowls with spoons" during family gatherings. It is only placed on display for special occasions, such as Franklin's birthday. The Franklin Institute is also the home of the
Benjamin Franklin National Memorial
The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, located in the rotunda of Franklin Institute science museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., features a colossal statue of a seated Benjamin Franklin, American writer, inventor, statesman, and Founding F ...
.
A website has attempted to catalog publicly known Franklin-era glass armonicas.
The
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
has an early 19th-century instrument on display, which is occasionally used for public performances and recordings.
Musical works
![Carnaval aquarium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Carnaval_aquarium.jpg)
Composers including
J. G. Naumann,
Padre Martini,
Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse (baptised 25 March 1699 – 16 December 1783) was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a co ...
,
Baldassare Galuppi
Baldassare Galuppi (18 October 17063 January 1785) was an Italian composer, born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Republic. He belonged to a generation of composers, including Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and C.  ...
, and
Niccolò Jommelli
Niccolò Jommelli (; 10 September 1714 – 25 August 1774) was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan School. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he was responsible for certain operatic reforms including redu ...
,
[Apel, Willi (1969). "Glass harmonica", ]
Harvard Dictionary of Music
', p.347. Harvard. . and more than 100 others composed works for the glass harmonica; some pieces survive in the repertoire through transcriptions for more conventional instruments. European monarchs indulged in playing it, and even
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...
took lessons as a child from
Franz Anton Mesmer
Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called " ani ...
.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
wrote his 1791
K. 617 and K.356 (K.617a) for the glass harmonica.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
used the instrument in an 1814 melodrama ''
Leonore Prohaska''.
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
used the instrument in the accompaniment to Amelia's aria "Par che mi dica ancora" in ''
Il castello di Kenilworth
(or, under its original name in 1829, ''Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth'')Ashbrook and Hibberd (2001), p. 229 is a ''melodramma serio'' or tragic opera in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Andrea Leone Tottola wrote the Italian libretto aft ...
'', premiered in 1829.
He also originally specified the instrument in ''
Lucia di Lammermoor
''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor''.
...
'' (1835) as a haunting accompaniment to the heroine's "mad scene", though before the premiere he was required by the producers to rewrite the part for two flutes.
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...
used this instrument in his 1886 ''
The Carnival of the Animals
''The Carnival of the Animals'' (''Le Carnaval des animaux'') is a humorous musical suite of fourteen movements, including "The Swan", by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The work, about 25 minutes in duration, was written for private ...
'' (in movements 7 and 14).
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
used the instrument in his 1917 ''
Die Frau ohne Schatten
' (''The Woman without a Shadow''), Op. 65, is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered at the ...
''.
For a while the instrument was "extraordinarily popular," its "'ethereal" qualities characteristic, along with instruments such as the
nail violin }
The nail violin is a musical instrument which was invented by German violinist Johann Wilde in 1740. The instrument consists of a semicircular wooden Sound board (music), soundboard, approximately by in size, with iron or brass Nail (engineering ...
and
Aeolian harp
An Aeolian harp (also wind harp) is a musical instrument that is played by the wind. Named for Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind, the traditional Aeolian harp is essentially a wooden box including a sounding board, with strings stretched ...
, of ''
Empfindsamkeit'', but "the instrument fell into oblivion," around 1830.
Since the armonica's performance revival during the 1980s, composers have again written for it (solo, chamber music, opera, electronic music, popular music) including
Jan Erik Mikalsen
Jan Erik Mikalsen (born 6 May 1979 in Kristiansund, Norway) is a Norwegian composer of contemporary music, living in Oslo.
Biography
Mikalsen studied at the Grieg Academy in Bergen and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and i ...
,
Regis Campo
Regis or Régis may refer to:
People
* Regis (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
* Regis (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
* Regis (musician), full name Karl O'Connor, an English ...
, Etienne Rolin,
Philippe Sarde
Philippe Sarde (born 21 June 1948) is a French film composer. Considered among the most versatile and talented French film composers of his generation, Sarde has scored over two hundred films, film shorts, and television mini-series. He received a ...
,
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...
,
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...
, Michel Redolfi, Cyril Morin, Stefano Giannotti,
Thomas Bloch
Thomas Bloch (born 1962 in Colmar, France) is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet.
Receiving a First Prize for ondes Martenot at the Paris Conservatoire National Sup ...
,
Jörg Widmann
Jörg Widmann (born 19 June 1973) is a German composer, conductor and clarinetist. In 2018, Widmann was the third most performed contemporary composer in the world. Formerly a clarinet and composition professor at the University of Music Freibu ...
(''Armonica'' 2006), and
Guillaume Connesson
Guillaume Connesson (One can hear Connesson pronouncing his name in thiinterview) is a French composer born in 1970 in Boulogne-Billancourt.
Biography
Connesson studied the piano, music theory, music history and choir conducting at the Conserva ...
.
The music for the 1997 ballet ''
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
'' by American composer
Elliot Goldenthal
Elliot Goldenthal (born May 2, 1954) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and film and theatrical scores. A student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, he is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various ...
opens and closes with the glass harmonica. The ballet was performed at San Francisco Ballet, the American Ballet Theater, the Joffrey Ballet, and on tour in Europe including at the Opera Garnier with Dennis James performing with his historical replica instrument.
Joseph Schwantner
Joseph Clyde Schwantner (born March 22, 1943, Chicago, Illinois) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2002. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize.
Schwantner ...
's symphonic poem ''
Aftertones of Infinity'', which was awarded the 1979
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted i ...
. employed individual wine glasses played by numerous members of the orchestra at key points during the work.
George Benjamin's opera ''
Written on Skin
''Written on Skin'' is an opera by the British composer George Benjamin.
Benjamin's first full-length opera, it was premiered at the 2012 Aix-en-Provence Festival by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as a commission from five opera centres,John All ...
'', which premiered at the 2012 Aix-en-Provence Festival, includes a prominent and elaborate part for the glass harmonica.
Purported dangers
The instrument's popularity did not last far beyond the 18th century. This may have been due to the inability to amplify the volume so as not to be drowned out by other instruments.
Some claim this was due to strange rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go mad. It is a matter of conjecture how pervasive that belief was; all the commonly cited examples of this rumor seem to be
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, if not confined to
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
. One example of alleged effects from playing the glass harmonica was noted by German
musicologist
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
Johann Friedrich Rochlitz
Johann Friedrich Rochlitz (12 February 1769 – 16 December 1842) was a German playwright, musicologist and art and music critic. His most notable work is his autobiographical account ''Tage der Gefahr'' (''Days of Danger'') about the Battle o ...
in the ''
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
The ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' (''General music newspaper'') was a German-language periodical published in the 19th century. Comini (2008) has called it "the foremost German-language musical periodical of its time". It reviewed musical e ...
'':
Marianne Davies
Marianne Davies (1743 or 1744 – c. 1818) was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies. She was a singer who also played flute and harpsichord.
In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the g ...
, who played flute and harpsichord – and was a young woman said to be related to Franklin – became proficient enough at playing the armonica to offer public performances. After touring for many years in duo performances with her celebrated vocalist sister, she was also said to have been afflicted with a
melancholia
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly dep ...
attributed to the plaintive tones of the instrument.
Marianne Kirchgessner
file:Harmonica 1.jpg, Harmonica 1.
Marianne Antonia Kirchgessner, also Mariana Kirchgessner, Kirchgäßner, (5 June 1769 in Bruchsal, Germany, – 9 December 1808), was a German glass harmonica player. She was blind from eye disease caused by smal ...
was an armonica player; she died at the age of 39 of pneumonia or an illness much like it.
[Bossler, Heinrich (1809-05-10). Marianne Kirchgessner obituary. ''Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung'', 10 May 1809. Obituary written by Marianne Kirchgessner's manager Heinrich Bossler.] However many others, including Franklin, lived long lives.
For a time the armonica achieved a genuine vogue, but like most fads, that for the armonica eventually passed. It has been claimed the sound-producing mechanism did not generate sufficient power to fill the large halls that were becoming home to modern stringed instruments, brass, woodwinds, and percussion. That the instrument was made with glass, and subject to easy breakage, perhaps did not help either.
By 1820, the armonica had mostly disappeared from frequent public performance, perhaps because musical fashions were changing.
A modern version of the "purported dangers" claims that players suffered
lead poisoning
Lead poisoning, also known as plumbism and saturnism, is a type of metal poisoning caused by lead in the body. The brain is the most sensitive. Symptoms may include abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, irritability, memory problems, inferti ...
because armonicas were made of
lead glass
Lead glass, commonly called crystal, is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40% (by weight) lead(II) oxide (PbO), while modern lead crystal, historically als ...
. However, there is no known scientific basis for the theory that merely touching lead glass can cause lead poisoning. Lead poisoning was common in the 18th and early 19th centuries for both armonica players and non-players alike; doctors prescribed lead compounds for a long list of ailments, and lead or lead oxide was used as a food preservative and in cookware and eating utensils. Trace amounts of lead that armonica players in Franklin's day received from their instruments would likely have been dwarfed by lead from other sources, such as the lead-content paint used to mark visual identification of the bowls to the players.
Historical replicas by Eisch use so-called "White Crystal" developed in the 18th c. replacing the lead with a higher potash content; many modern newly invented devices, such as those made by Finkenbeiner, are made from so-called Quartz "pure
silica
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...
glass" - a glass formulation developed in the early 20th c. for scientific purposes.
Perception of the sound
The disorienting quality of the ethereal sound is due in part to the way that humans perceive and locate ranges of sounds. Above 4
kHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that on ...
people primarily use the ''loudness'' of the sound to differentiate between left and right ears and thus
triangulate
In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points.
Applications
In surveying
Specifically in surveying, triangulation involves only angle me ...
, or locate the source. Below 1 kHz, they use the ''
phase difference
In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it v ...
s'' of sound waves arriving at their left and right ears to identify location. The predominant pitch of the armonica is in the range of 1–4 kHz, which coincides with the sound range where the brain is "not quite sure", and thus listeners have difficulty locating it in space (where it comes from), and discerning the source of the sound (the materials and techniques used to produce it).
Benjamin Franklin himself described the harmonica's tones as "incomparably sweet". The full quotation, written in a letter to
Giambattista Beccaria
Giovanni Battista Beccaria (; 3 October 1716 – 27 May 1781), Italian physicist, was born at Mondovì, and entered the religious Order of the Pious Schools or Piarists, in 1732, where he studied, and afterward taught, grammar and rhetoric. At t ...
, an Italian priest and electrician, is: "The advantages of this instrument are that its tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they may be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, once well tuned, never again wants tuning."
A music critic for the ''Morning Chronicle'', writing of a performance by Kirchgessner in 1794, said, "Her taste is chastened and the dulcet notes of the instrument would be delightful indeed, were they more powerful and articulate; but that we believe the most perfect execution cannot make them. In a smaller room and an audience less numerous, the effect must be enchanting. Though the accompaniments were kept very much under, they were still occasionally too loud."
Modern revival
![Glass Harmonica at Poncan Theatre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Glass_Harmonica_at_Poncan_Theatre.jpg)
Music for glass harmonica was rare from 1820 until the 1930s (although
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
intended for the
aria
In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...
"
Il dolce suono "Il dolce suono" ("The Sweet Sound") is the incipit of the recitativo of a ''scena ed aria'' taken from Act III scene 2, ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' by Gaetano Donizetti. It is also commonly known as the "mad scene" sung by the leading soprano, Lucia. ...
" from his 1835 opera ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' to be accompanied by a glass harmonica, and Richard Strauss specified use of the instrument in his 1919 opera ''Die Frau ohne Schatten''), when German virtuoso
Bruno Hoffmann
Bruno Hoffmann (15 September 191311 April 1991) was a German glass harpist. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica.
Bruno Hoffmann was born in Stuttgart, Germ ...
began revitalizing interest in his individual goblet instrument version that he named the glass harp for his stunning performances. Playing his "glass harp" (with Eisch manufactured custom designed glasses mounted in a case designed with underlying resonance chamber) he transcribed or rearranged much of the literature written for the mechanized instrument, and commissioned contemporary composers to write new pieces for his goblet version.
Franklin's glass harmonica design was reworked yet again without patent credit by master glassblower and musician,
Gerhard B. Finkenbeiner (1930–1999) in 1984. After thirty years of experimentation, Finkenbeiner's imitative prototype consisted of clear glasses and glasses later equipped with gold bands mimicking late 18th-century designs. The historical instruments with gold bands indicated the equivalent of the black keys on the piano, simplifying the multi-hued painted bowl rims with white accidentals as specified by Franklin. Finkenbeiner Inc., of
Waltham,
, continues to produce versions of these instruments commercially , featuring glass elements made of scientific formulated fused-silica
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
.
From 1989 on to now, Sascha Reckert, a German glass instrumentalist and glass instrument producer, restored and reproduced glass armonicas from the original using crystal glass with full bass range, required for the original compositions. He did the first performance with glass armonica of ''Lucia die Lammermoor'' (Munich state opera) and ''Frau ohne Schatten'' in a full scene production, and invented the Verrophon with glass tubes, with a more powerful sound. Reckert also produced the harmonicas of Dennis James, the Wiener Glasharmonikaduo, Martin Hilmer and others.
French instrument makers and artists
Bernard and François Baschet invented a modern variation of the Chladni Euphone in 1952, the "crystal organ" or
Cristal di Baschet, which consists of up to 52 chromatically tuned resonating metal rods that are set into motion by attached glass rods that are rubbed with wet fingers. The Cristal di Baschet differs mainly from the other glass instruments in that the identical length and thickness glass rods are set horizontally, and attach to the tuned metal stems that have added metal blocks for increasing resonance. The result is a fully acoustic instrument, and impressive amplification obtained using fiberglass or metal cones fixed on wood and by a tall cut-out multi-resonant metal part in the shape of a flame. Some thin added metallic wires resembling cat whiskers are placed under the instrument, supposedly to increase the sound power of high-pitched frequencies.
Dennis James
Dennis James (born Demie James Sposa, August 24, 1917 – June 3, 1997) was an American television personality, philanthropist, and commercial spokesman. Until 1976, he had appeared on TV more times and for a longer period than any other televi ...
recorded an album of all glass music, ''Cristal: Glass Music Through the Ages'' co-produced by
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American ...
and Grammy Award-winning producer
John Boylan.
[Sony Classical Music. "Cristal – Glass Music Through the Ages"]
James plays the glass harmonica, the Cristal di Baschet, and the
Seraphim
A seraph (, "burning one"; plural seraphim ) is a type of celestial or heavenly being originating in Ancient Judaism. The term plays a role in subsequent Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Tradition places seraphim in the highest rank in Chris ...
on the CD in original historical compositions and new arrangements for glass by
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
,
Scarlatti, Schnaubelt, and
Fauré and collaborates on the recording with the
Emerson String Quartet
The Emerson String Quartet, also known as the Emerson Quartet, is an American string quartet that was initially formed as a student group at the Juilliard School in 1976. It was named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and beg ...
, operatic soprano
Ruth Ann Swenson, and Ronstadt.
James played glass instruments on Marco Beltrami's film scores for ''
The Minus Man
''The Minus Man'' is a 1999 thriller film starring Owen Wilson and Janeane Garofalo. It is based on the novel by Lew McCreary, and directed by Hampton Fancher, who also wrote the screenplay. The film centers on a serial killer whom Fancher desc ...
'' (1999) and ''
The Faculty
''The Faculty'' is a 1998 American science fiction horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Kevin Williamson. It stars Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, B ...
'' (1998).
"I first became aware of glass instruments at about the age of 6 while visiting the
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. I can still recall being mesmerized by the appearance of the original
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
harmonica then on display in its own showcase in the entry rotunda of the city's famed science museum."
James Horner
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American composer. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements, and for his frequent use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
Horner's first film score was i ...
used a glass harmonica and
pan flute
A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...
for Spock's theme in the 1982 film ''
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''. On February 23, 2007, the armonica was used by nu-metal band Korn while filming their session with MTV Unplugged. It was stated that it was of Benjamin Franklin's design.
Notable players
Historical
*
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...
*
Marianne Davies
Marianne Davies (1743 or 1744 – c. 1818) was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies. She was a singer who also played flute and harpsichord.
In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the g ...
*
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
(United States)
*
Franz Mesmer
Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called " ani ...
*
Marianne Kirchgessner
file:Harmonica 1.jpg, Harmonica 1.
Marianne Antonia Kirchgessner, also Mariana Kirchgessner, Kirchgäßner, (5 June 1769 in Bruchsal, Germany, – 9 December 1808), was a German glass harmonica player. She was blind from eye disease caused by smal ...
*
Christa Schönfeldinger
* Mrs. Philip Thicknesse (born
Anne Ford
Anne or Ann Ford, (Mrs Philip Thicknesse, 22 February 1737 – 20 January 1824) was an 18th-century English musician and singer, famous in her time for a scandal that attended her struggle to perform in public.
Life and music
Some aspects of ...
), 1775, United Kingdom)
*
Wiener Glasharmonika Duo
Contemporary
*
Thomas Bloch
Thomas Bloch (born 1962 in Colmar, France) is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet.
Receiving a First Prize for ondes Martenot at the Paris Conservatoire National Sup ...
(France)
*
Cecilia Brauer
Cecilia is a personal name originating in the name of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music.
The name has been popularly used in Europe (particularly the United Kingdom and Italy, where in 2018 it was the 43rd most popular name for girls born ...
(USA)
*
Nils Frahm
Nils Frahm (born 20 September 1982) is a German musician, composer, and record producer based in Berlin. He is known for combining classical and electronic music and for an unconventional approach to the piano in which he mixes a grand piano, upr ...
(Germany)
*
Bill Hayes (New York City) Broadway Musician and Percussionist, Barbra Streisand Orchestra 1994, 2006, 2007
*
Martin Hilmer (Germany)
*
Bruno Hoffmann
Bruno Hoffmann (15 September 191311 April 1991) was a German glass harpist. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica.
Bruno Hoffmann was born in Stuttgart, Germ ...
(Germany)
*
Dennis James
Dennis James (born Demie James Sposa, August 24, 1917 – June 3, 1997) was an American television personality, philanthropist, and commercial spokesman. Until 1976, he had appeared on TV more times and for a longer period than any other televi ...
(USA)
*
Friedrich Heinrich Kern
Friedrich Heinrich Kern (born March 19, 1980 in Ludwigshafen) is a German composer, pianist, and glass harmonica player.
Kern began his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim where he graduated with a Diplom in M ...
(United States/Germany)
*
Alasdair Malloy (United Kingdom)
* David Mauldin (USA)
*
Gloria Parker
Gloria Parker (née Rosenthal; August 20, 1921April 13, 2022) was an American musician and bandleader who had a radio show during the big band era. ''The Gloria Parker Show'' was broadcast nightly from 1950 to 1957, coast to coast on WABC. She ...
(USA) glass harp
*
Gerald Schönfeldinger (Austria)
*
Dean Shostak (USA)
* Ed Stander (USA)
*
William Zeitler
William Zeitler (born 1954 in St. Louis) is a performer on the armonica, or glass harmonica,About William.
williamzeitler.com, 2009. ...
(United States)
Related instruments
![Glassharmonica](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Glassharmonica.png)
Another instrument that is also played with wet fingers is the
hydraulophone
A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically."Fluid Melodies: The hydraulophones of Professor Steve Mann" In Wat ...
. The hydraulophone sounds similar to a glass armonica but has a darker, heavier sound, that extends down into the
subsonic range. The technique for playing the hydraulophone is similar to that used for playing the armonica.
See also
*
Cristal baschet
*
Glass diatonic harmonica, a diatonic harmonica constructed from glass
*
Hydraulophone
A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically."Fluid Melodies: The hydraulophones of Professor Steve Mann" In Wat ...
*
Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism
The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism involved two entirely separate and independent French Royal Commissions, each appointed by Louis XVI in 1784, that were conducted simultaneously by a committee composed of four physicians from the Paris F ...
*
Sensitive style
Empfindsamkeit ( en, sentimental style) or Empfindsamer Stil is a style of musical composition and poetry developed in 18th-century Germany, intended to express "true and natural" feelings, and featuring sudden contrasts of mood. It was developed ...
*
Singing bowl
A standing bell or resting bell is an inverted bell, supported from below with the rim uppermost. Such bells are normally bowl-shaped, and exist in a wide range of sizes, from a few centimetres to a metre in diameter. They are often played by st ...
*
Verrophone
A verrophone ("glass-euphonium") is a musical instrument, invented in 1983 by Sascha Reckert, which, "uses tuned glass tubes,"Rossing, Thomas D. (2000). ''Science of Percussion Instruments'', p.187-8. World Scientific. . open at one end and arra ...
*
Waterphone
A waterphone (also ocean harp) is a type of inharmonic acoustic tuned idiophone consisting of a stainless steel resonator ''bowl'' or ''pan'' with a cylindrical ''neck'' and bronze rods of different lengths and diameters around the rim of the bowl ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
* King, A.H., "The Musical Glasses and Glass Harmonica," ''Royal Musical Association, Proceedings'', Vol.72, (1945/1946), pp. 97–122.
* Sterki, Peter. ''Klingende Gläser''. Bern. NY 2000''. br.
History of the Glass Harmonica
Further reading
;History
* Zeitler, W. ''The Glass Armonica—the Music and the Madness (2013)'' A history of glass music from the ''Kama Sutra'' to modern times, including the glass harmonica (also known as the glass harmonica), the musical glasses and the glass harp. 342 pages, 45 illustrations, 27 page bibliography.
;Instruction books
* Bartl. ''About the Keyed Armonica''.
* Ford, Anne (1761). ''Instructions for playing on the music glasses'' (Method). London.
* Franklin, J. E. ''Introduction to the Knowledge of the Seraphim or Musical Glasses''.
* Hopkinson-Smith, Francis (1825). ''Tutor for the Grand Harmonicon''. Baltimore, Maryland.
* Ironmonger, David. ''Instructions for the Double and Single Harmonicon Glasses''.
* Muller, Johann Christian (a.k.a. John Christopher Moller). ''Anleitung zum Selbstunterricht auf der Harmonika''.
* Roellig, Leopold. ''Uber die Harmonika / Uber die Orphika''.
* Smith, James. ''Tutor for the Musical Glasses''.
* Wunsch, J. D. ''Practische – Schule fur die lange Harmonika''.
External links
G2 Glass Instrument Makers siteArticles (with citations) about the armonicaby William Zeitler
Historic 18th-century Glass Harmonicaat
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 F ...
'Cecilia Brauer's bio and tribute, history of the instrument'*
'Turn it off: Music to drive you crazy'by
CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent of Ca ...
Ideas (radio show)
''Ideas'' is a long-running scholarly radio documentary series on CBC Radio One, first broadcast in 1965. it has been hosted by Nahlah Ayed and is broadcast between 8:05 and 9:00 p.m. weekday evenings; one episode each week is repeated o ...
;Videos
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glass Harmonica
Inventions by Benjamin Franklin
Crystallophones
American musical instruments
Sets of friction vessels