8/13/2019 Sobre a Harmonica de Vidro

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Msica como cura; msica como mal

- Harmnica de vidro: desaparecimento com a crena de que enlouquecia ou fazia aparecer fantasmas...

he instrument's popularity did not last far beyond the 18th century. Some claimthis 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.

One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung:

The harmonica 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.[14]

Marianne Kirchgessner was an armonica player; she died at the age of 39 of pneumonia or an illness much like it.[15] However, others, including Franklin, livedlong lives. By 1820 the glass armonica had disappeared from public performance,perhaps because musical fashions were changing music was moving out of the relat

ively small aristocratic halls of Mozart's day into the increasingly large concert halls of Beethoven and his successors, and the delicate sound of the armonicasimply could not be heard.

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.[16] 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 oflead that armonica players in Franklin's day received from their instruments wou

ld likely have been dwarfed by lead from other sources.[17] (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica)

Cf. The Glass Harmonica by Louise Marley (2000)

Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_kPOI5wPZE&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Cf. Tune Your Brain, by Elizabeth Miles Miracles of Mind, Russell Targ and Jane Katra Mind Trek, by Joseph McMoneagle

Cf. Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy, by Robert Jourdain; a marvelous book full ofscientific, artistic, and historical tidbits.

Visit William Wilde Zeitlers excellent web page at www.glassarmonica.com for pictures, sound bites, history, and a wealth of links.