About the instruments

"...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." -- Friedrich Rochlitz

Glass is one of the world's substances most associated with the ethereal and the supernatural, and perhaps the least common medium for musical instrument construction. A simple emulsion of silicon dioxide (SiO₂, commonly known as silica or quartz) and trace elements, it was probably first used in music as chimes and bells, and the "singing" qualities of glass bowls and goblets were likely known as far back as Rennaissance times. Composer/author Franchino Gaffurio described what was probably a glass harp in his book Theorica Musicae (1492).

Technically speaking, all glass instruments are idiophones, meaning that they produce sound by vibrations of the entire instrument (as opposed to stringed instruments, where only the strings vibrate). Most glass instruments are friction idiophones, which produce sound by being rubbed or bowed, while a few are struck idiophones, which produce sound by being hit with a stick or mallet.

The first formal glass instrument was the glass harp, a friction idiophone also referred to as musical glasses, vérillon, or séraphine. Though Gaffurio's reference was much earlier, the use of the glass harp as a classical music instrument is generally credited to Richard Pockrich in 1741. Christoph Gluck was the first major composer to write for it. A collection of between 20 and 50 glasses, goblets, and bowls are tuned with water to specific pitches, and sound is produced by wetting a finger and rubbing the edges of the glasses. The glass harp is one of the easiest glass instruments to acquire, as adequate collections are commonly scavenged from everyday sources. Glass harpers on Musique de Verre include Brien Engel (pictured), Terry and Donal Hinely, Ingeborg Emge, the Glass Duo, Peter Bennett, Dillinger Heermann, and many others.

The relative impracticality of the glass harp inspired Benjamin Franklin to invent the glass armonica (left and top of page) in 1761. Franklin placed numerous nested glass cups on a spindle, permitting multiple tones to be produced much more easily. It was an immediate hit in both America and Europe, where it attracted the attention of major composers, including Mozart, and Donizetti, but the majority of classical compositions came from lesser known composers such as Johann Reichardt, Karl Leopold Rollig, J. A. P. Schulz, and Johann Naumann. Some composers credited with writing for the instrument, such as Beethoven and Strauss, actually only wrote occasional incidental passages for it rather than full works. The exception was Mozart, who composed at least two major works for glass armonica, an Adagio and Rondo in C minor and an Adagio in C Major, which are two of the best known glass armonica compositions. The acknowledged virtuosa of the instrument in this era was Austrian Marianne Kirchgessner, whose premature death sowed the seeds of the instrument's downfall.

Originally inspiring comparisons to "the music of heaven", the glass armonica fell victim to less angelic, and in fact increasingly bizarre, rumors, fed by Kirchgessner's death and culminating in German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz's absurd evaluation of the instrument in his book Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Whether because of the rumors or simply changing musical tastes, the armonica all but vanished from music by 1820, and the few compositions after that date resorted to similar sounding instruments as fill-ins, such as in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (which substituted two flutes) and Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" from The Nutcracker (which used celeste instead).

The modern revival of the glass armonica is broadly credited to the work of Boston glassblower Gerhard Finkenbeiner, who began producing them again around 1984 after many years of experiments. Instead of lead crystal, which was the most common material in Franklin's day, Finkenbeiner used pure quartz. But don't expect to hop into the glass armonica scene casually -- an entry-level Finkenbeiner will set you back more than $7,000, and surviving Franklin instruments border on priceless. Most glass armonicas in use today by professional performers are Finkenbeiner instruments, including Musique de Verre artists Thomas Bloch, William Zeitler (pictured), Cecilia Brauer, and many others.

The German audiologist Ernst Chladni had invented an instrument called the Euphonium in 1791, consisting of metal rods attached to glass rod resonators. The Baschet Brothers, Bernard and Francois, reversed the arrangement in 1954, rubbing glass rods attached to metal resonators for their cristal Baschet (right). Contemporary with musique concrete, the cristal Baschet has a somewhat atonal quality that fits the genre. Unfortunately, we don't yet have a player of the cristal Baschet on Musique de Verre, but we're looking.

The most recent variation on glass friction idiophones is Sascha Reckert's 1983 invention, the verrophone. The instrument, consisting of upright glass vessels in a rack, appears to have more in common with the older glass harp, and is played in a similar fashion. Musique de Verre's theme song, J. S. Bach's Arioso in E major, is performed by Martin Hilmer on a verrophone, and we're looking for more performers for the program.

Glass instruments aren't just those that are rubbed. You can also strike them, but gently please! Glass marimbas and xylophones are in use out there, an excellent example being the Aquarion series of instruments by Elemental Design's Jim Doble. You can even blow through glass tubes as if they were reed instruments or globular horns. Few of these glass instruments are standardized, and many of them are improvised or one-off instruments. You can hear such instruments used on Musique de Verre by the Glass Orchestra as well as experimental musical instrument guru Bart Hopkin.

About the music

What will you hear on Musique de Verre? First off, quite a bit of classical music. As described above, many composers wrote for glass harp and armonica in the late 18th to early 19th centuries. A lot of it was written as chamber music, such as Mozart's Adagio and Rondo in C major and Rollig's Quintet in C minor, both for glass armonica. There are also many solo works, including recent compositions by Holt-Sombach and Thomas Bloch. On Musique de Verre you'll hear classical performances by Bloch, Ingeborg Emge, and Dennis James, as well as incidental music by Martin Hilmer.

Glass instruments are also popular in the New Age genre, both solo and accompanied. Harp, guitar, and synthesizer tend to be most common, as heard in performances by William Zeitler and Yatri, as well as the drones of singing bowls by Elivia Melodey.

But as you'll see, there's a place for glass just about anywhere. On Musique de Verre you'll hear jazz by Brien Engel, folk music by Donal Hinely, the avantgarde performances of the Glass Orchestra, and even rock performances from Corpus Callosum and Dillinger Lee Heermann.

About the show

Your host for Spellbound: Musique de Verre is David Vesel. David began in 1988 as a radio host, and eventually became station manager, for WRBU-FM at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, hosting electronic music shows. He left WRBU in 1992.

He returned to radio a decade later on the Internet in February 2002 with Escape From Noise, a vocal electronica program at now-defunct Ampcast.com. He later established Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin, in January 2005 as a launch program for the Internet station Cygnus Radio, which he co-founded. A thereminist acquainted with David referred him to the glass armonica music of William Zeitler, which began his interest in glass music and instruments. Spellbound: Musique de Verre was founded in December 2007.

David hosts both radio shows from his music studio in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is also an electropop musician, and "by day" (it's actually more of an evening job) he teaches web technologies at ITT Technical Institute. David owns a theremin but can't play it yet -- he can barely play a scale on it -- and he doesn't even know which scale. But he keeps trying. His goal is to someday play "Ave Maria" by Gounod. He'd like a glass armonica and is willing to accept donations if that's what it takes.