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Glass harmonica

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File:Armonica.png
An Armonica.

The glass harmonica, also known as glass armonica, '"hydrocrystalophone" or simply armonica (derived from "armonia", the Italian word for harmony) is a type of musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction, making it both a crystallophone and a friction idiophone). Despite being played with wet fingers, the sound is produced by vibration of the solid glass, so that the glass harmonica is not a hydraulophone even if played completely submerged in water.

The Fixed Stars, the Frontier to the Beyond
A song by a glass harmonica and a glass harp tone.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

History

The glass harmonica is derived from the glass harp, a musical instrument consisting of a set of wine glasses, usually tuned with water. When Benjamin Franklin invented his mechanical version of the instrument, he called it the "armonica", based on the Italian word "armonia", which means "harmony". The German name for Franklin's instrument is Glasharmonika. The free reed wind instrument called harmonica was not invented until 1821, sixty years later.

Benjamin Franklin's armonica

Benjamin Franklin invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by William Deleval. Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies.

In Franklin's version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally nested on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot-operated treadle. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note. 'A's were dark blue, 'B's purple, 'C's red, 'D's orange, 'E's yellow, 'F's green, 'G's blue, and accidentals 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 helped produce a clear tone in the same way rosin is applied to the bows of string instruments.

Some attempted improvements on the armonica included adding keyboards, placing pads between the bowls to reduce vibration,[1] and using violin bows. These variations never caught on because they did not sound as pleasant.

Another supposed improvement was to have the glasses rotate into a trough of water. However, William Zeitler 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.[2] It 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 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and put on display.[3] 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.[3] Some 18th and 19th century specimens of the armonica have survived into the 21st century. Franz Mesmer also played the armonica and used it as an integral part of his Mesmerism.

An original Franklin armonica is on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is also the home of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.[4] There is also a glass armonica viewable in Benjamin Franklin House on Craven Street, London.

Works

Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, Richard Strauss, and Camille Saint-Saëns all composed works for the glass harmonica. European monarchs indulged in it, and even Marie Antoinette had taken lessons on it as a child from Marianne Davies. One of the best known pieces is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the ballet The Nutcracker; Tchaikovsky's first draft called for glass harmonica, but he changed it to the newly-invented celesta before the work's premiere performance in 1892.[5]

Purported dangers

The instrument's popularity did not last far beyond the 18th century. Some claim this was due to strange rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go insane. (It is a matter of conjecture how pervasive that belief was; all the commonly cited examples of this rumor are German, if not confined to Vienna.). This was not true nor are the other superstitions listed below.

One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung where it is stated that "the armonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation. If you are suffering from any nervous disorder, you should not play it; if you are not yet ill you should not play it; if you are feeling melancholy you should not play it."

One armonica player, Marianne Kirchgessner died at the age of 39 of pneumonia or an illness much like it. See her obituary, written by her manager Heinrich Bossler in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung May 10, 1809. However, others, including Franklin, lived long lives. By 1820 the glass armonica had disappeared from public performance, perhaps because musical fashions were changing — music was moving out of the relatively small aristocratic halls of Mozart's day into the increasingly large concert halls of Beethoven and his successors, and the delicate sound of the armonica simply could not be heard. The harpsichord disappeared at about the same time — perhaps for the same reason.

A modern version of the "purported dangers" claims that players suffered lead poisoning because armonicas were (and some still are) made of lead glass. However, there is no known scientific basis for the theory that merely touching lead glass can cause lead poisoning. [citation needed] It is known that 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, lead oxide was used as a preservative in food and beverages, food was cooked in tin/lead pots which gave off lead fumes--the tin protected the food, and acidic beverages were commonly drunk from lead pewter vessels. Even if armonica players of Franklin's day somehow received trace amounts of lead from their instruments, that would likely have been dwarfed by the lead they were receiving from other sources.[6]

Modern revival

The glass armonica was re-invented by master glassblower and musician, Gerhard B. Finkenbeiner (1930–1999) in 1984. After thirty years of experimentation, Finkenbeiner's prototype consisted of clear glasses and glasses with gold bands. Those with gold bands indicate the equivalent of the black keys on the piano. Finkenbeiner Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, continues to produce these instruments commercially.

Bernard Baschet invented a variation of the glass harmonica in 1952, the crystal organ or Cristal baschet, which consists of 52 chromatically-tuned glass rods that are rubbed with wet fingers. The main difference to the glass harmonica is that the rods, set horizontally, are attached to a heavy metal block to which the vibration is passed through a metal stem. The crystal organ is a fully acoustic instrument, and amplification is obtained using fiberglass cones fixed on wood and by a tall cut out metal part in the shape of a flame. Metallic rods resembling cat whiskers are placed under the instrument to increase the sound power of high-pitched sounds.

Notable armonica players

Historical

Contemporary

Literary references

  • In his novel Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon fictionally describes Franklin's armonica: "If Chimes could whisper, if Melodies could pass away, and their souls wander the Earth… if Ghosts danced at Ghost Ridottoes, 'twould require such Musick, Sentiment ever held back, ever at the edge of breaking forth, in Fragments, as Glass breaks."
  • In the manga and anime D.N.Angel, a living painting of a unicorn would constantly kidnap little girls to be playmates of the girl inside of the artwork. Whenever it arrived, the sound of a glass harmonica playing would be heard.
  • In Bruce Sterling's short story "We See Things Differently" (published in Semiotext(e) SF, 1989, and collected in his own collection, Globalhead, as well as The Norton Book of Science Fiction), the near-future rock musician/insurrectionary Tom Boston plays it in concert: "...legend said that its players went mad, their nerves shredded by its clarity of sound. It was a legend Boston was careful to exploit. He played the machine sparingly, with the air of a magician, of a Solomon unbottling demons. I was glad of his spare use, for its sound was so beautiful that it stung the brain."
  • The novel The Glass Harmonica by Louise Marley is speculative/historical fiction focusing on the glass harmonica. It describes Benjamin Franklin's invention of the armonica, the public debut of the armonica as played by Marianne Davies, and exposure of a young Mozart to the instrument. A future story arc describes the modern revival of the instrument and the superstitions regarding its potential effects on the nerves..

References

  1. ^ Zeitler, William, The Music and the Magic of the Glass Armonica, retrieved 2007-05-22
  2. ^ See http://www.glassarmonica.com/armonica/history/franklin/WaterTrough.php which includes a video demonstration.
  3. ^ a b The Bakken, Glass Armonica, retrieved 2007-05-22
  4. ^ http://www2.fi.edu/exhibits/permanent/electricity.php
  5. ^ Sterki, P. (2000); Klingende Gläser; Peter Lang; NY; ISBN 3906764605, p. 97
  6. ^ See Finger, Stanley (2006); Doctor Franklin's Medicine; U of Pennsylvania Press; Philadelphia; ISBN 081223913X. Chapter 11, "The Perils of Lead" (p.181-198) discusses the pervasiveness of lead poisoning in Franklin's day and Franklin's own leadership in combating it.
  • "An Extensive Bibliography". of resources about the armonica. Retrieved January 16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Franklin, Benjamin". Franklibn correspondence regarding the armonica. Retrieved January 16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "Galileo, Galilei". Passage from 'Two New Sciences' by Galileo about the 'wet finger around the wine glass' phenomenon (1638). Retrieved January 16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • "wiseGEEK". What is a Glass Harmonica?. Retrieved June 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • King, A.H., "The Musical Glasses and Glass Harmonica", Royal Musical Association, Proceedings, Vol.72, (1945/1946), pp.97-122.

Instruction books

  • Bartl. About the Keyed Armonica.
  • Ford, Anne (1761). Instructions for playing on the music glasses (Method). London. "A pdf copy" (PDF). Retrieved January 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  • 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 (aka 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.

See also

Artist sites

Audio and video

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