Works
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Frideric Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Strauss, and more than 100 other composers composed works for the glass harmonica; some pieces survived in the repertoire in transcriptions for more conventional instruments. Since it was rediscovered during the 1980s composers have written again for it (solo, chamber music, opera, electronic music, popular music) including Jan Erik Mikalsen, Regis Campo, Etienne Rolin, Philippe Sarde, Damon Albarn, Tom Waits, Michel Redolfi, Cyril Morin, Stefano Giannotti, Thomas Bloch, and Guillaume Connesson. 's renowned new opera "Written on Skin" premiered at the 2012 Aix-en-Provence Festival includes a prominent part for the Armonica which was performed by Alasdair Malloy.
European monarchs indulged in it, and even Marie Antoinette took lessons as a child from Marianne Davies. One of the best known myths about the instrument involves the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the ballet The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky's first draft called for glass harmonica – which used the name but was actually a kind of glass xylophone. He changed it to the newly-invented celesta (by Mustel, Paris) before the work's premiere performance in 1892. Camille Saint-Saëns also used this percussive instrument in his The Carnival of the Animals (in movements 7 and 14). Gaetano Donizetti originally included it in Lucia di Lammermoor as a haunting accompaniment to the heroine's mad scenes, though before the premiere he rewrote the part for flute.
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