What a great idea is this thread,
Dave! Congratulations.
Your link about the Madisons’ meetings recalled to me the
glass harmonica (also glassharmonica, glass armonica, Armonica de verre in French, Glasharmonika in German).
I just have heard one time this instrument in the Adagio in C major KV 536 (617a), included in the Brilliant’s Mozart Edition (Klavierstüke Vol. III, track 10), but it’s really wonderful.
Here some lines from the booklet:
“The glass harmonica was invented by Benjamin Franklin, the instrument consisting of assembly of crystal bowls arranged by semitones and placed one within the other without touching. A pedal then turned the mechanism to turn the assembly of bowls, which where then made to vibrate by the player touching dampened fingers to the edges of the bowls. The instrument had a great success in Vienna”.
More information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica#WorksThis instrument quickly dropped into the oblivion for strange reasons:
“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 mad. (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 made of lead glass. However, there is no known scientific basis for the theory that merely touching lead glass can cause lead poisoning. Furthermore, many modern versions, such as those made by Finkenbeiner, are made from pure silica glass.[13] 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”.
