The Armonica Wanes
An early medical book said that listening to the sounds produced on glasses was “sure to cure certain maladies of the blood”. But later, in 1798 Friedrich Rochlitz wrote in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, “There may be various reasons for the scarcity of armonica players, principally the almost universally shared opinion that playing it is damaging to the health, that it excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood, that it is an apt method for slow self-annihilation Many (physicians with whom I have discussed this matter) say the sharp penetrating tone runs like a spark through the entire nervous system, forcibly shaking it up and causing nervous disorders.” He goes on to give some warnings:
If you are suffering from any nervous disorder you should not play it,
If you are not yet ill you should not play it excessively
If you are feeling melancholy you should not play it or else play uplifting pieces
If tired, avoid playing it late at night.
J.C. Muller warned in his instructional manual of 1788:
“If you have been upset by harmful novels, false friends, or perhaps a deceiving girl then abstain from playing the armonica-it will only upset you even more. There are people of this kind-of both sexes-who must be advised not to study the instrument, in order that their state of mind should not be aggravated.”
J.M. Roger’s Treatise on the Effects of Music on the Human Body (Paris, 1803) describes the melancholic timbre of the instrument as “plunging us into a profound detachment, relaxing all the nerves of the body”[Roger, p.277], while the author Chateaubriand writes of the musical glass that “the ear of a mortal can perceive in its plaintive tones the echoes of a divine harmony.”
When word began to circulate that there was illness attributed to the instrument, people began to panic, blaming the instrument for everything from domestic disputes, premature births, and mortal afflictions, to convulsions in dogs and cats. In certain German States it was banned by police decree “on account of injury to one’s health and for the sake of public order.”
Also, nineteenth century music was gravitating towards larger and larger orchestras performing in larger and larger halls. This certainly contributed to the louder piano replacing the quieter harpsichord. This certainly contributed to the demise of the armonica as well. In fact, a reviewer of the day complained about just this issue. Reviewing a concert by Marianne Kirchgaessner:
Nerve Damage?
The fact that making music, particularly in excess, can be injurious to health is firmly embodied in medical thinking around 1800. Therese of Brunswick writes 1804 to its sister Josephine: “Do not make music so much, if it attacks your nerves too much ”. If women are to be restrained from playing certain instruments or even from singing, it happens often under reference to health damage up to hemorrhage or early death. In the Nekrolog on the Pianistin Caroline Hartmann, Sch¨ ulerin von Chopin and Liszt, writes the AMZ: “Unfortunately however this rare plant divided the fate of so some different of its sex, whose mental blossoming can happen only on expenses of a tender figure. The effort, with which it gave itself the study of the music during its stay in Paris, developed the germ of a fatal illness” (1834, frame 634).
quoted in Bowers (1994), 123
Bowers (1994), 123, references Rieger (1981), 54???
Warnings of overstimulation are often expressed around 1800 by pedagogues, the medical profession and music writers. The yearbooks of the German national association for music quote the thought even with the assumption, women caused the overstimulation intentionally: It is the speech by the statement of an English physician, “that the music from the female sex with so much preference is therefore floated, because it increases the diseased attraction barness those into Hypochondrie changes last ”(1839, P. 304). The opinion, which stands behind this statement, was far common: Normal humans and man know illness only as a special case, as state of emergency of the body; the woman almost aims at illness for the perfection it a zudiktierten sex character.1
Pohl-cursory notices.
Lütge (in 1925) gives us a lovely list of glass armonica victims. He asserts: “nearly all virtuosos had to give up playing after a few years”[L üthge (1925), 102].
According to L¨ utge, the armonica carnage includes:
The early death of the beautiful Ch. Fr. Bause
The attempted suicide by the wife of Kupferstechers Stock
The unlucky poverty of Bernhard Theodor Breitkopf (nerve-damage to the wallet?)
Roellig (of course) suffered from “nerves, twitching muscles, dizziness, cramps, tumors and paralysis of the limbs”
There’s no question that there were rumors about ’nerve damage’. Yet even contemporaries regarded this as silly. Rochlitz, a music critic of the day [AMZ, November 14, 1798] writes:
“. . . I state: playing the armonica harms the health no more than playing any other expressive instrument.”
The whole tone of Rochlitz’s several-page article is to express amazement at the ’nerve-damage’ rumor that was apparently circulating at the time:
I can find no harm in playing the armonica; so I am in no way in agreement with those who say it requires caution—no more than anything else which excites our feelings strongly.
Nevertheless, Rochlitz gives some precautions (even in 1798 one can’t escape the legal disclaimers!):
1. Patients with nervous-disorders, until they are cured, should not play they armonica—as they should also avoid everything that strongly excites their feelings and provokes their ill nerves.
2. If you are not ill you should not play it excessively. . .
3. If you are feeling melancholy you should not play it or else play uplifting pieces. . .
4. If tired, avoid playing it late at night. . .
5. Use cold water to moisten the glasses, and don’t use too much water. . .
Rochlitz then concludes his article by chastising composers: “Why have you composed so little for this instrument? Could this be because of the small number of players and therefore the customers to be expected?. . . ” Apparently, inflicting nerve-damage on players is not a concern!
Lead Poisoning?
One theory about the disappearance of the glass armonica is that its players got lead poisoning from touching the lead glass used to make the glasses. This theory has been quite popular and persistent.
What We Now Know About Lead Poisoning
We now know that lead poisoning occurs by ingesting or inhaling it. You can touch raw lead safely-just don’t eat lunch after that without thoroughly washing your hands. This is according to OSHA[???], who, if anything, errs on the side of safety.
Go to your local fishing supply store (such as the fishing section in Wal-Mart) and you’ll see lead fishing weights for sale. They are not packaged in any sort of special package to prevent you from touching the raw lead. That is because merely touching raw lead in and of itself does not pose any known health hazard[and lots of very skilled people have looked very hard at this issue]. And at your local tire store you’ll see the tire mechanics balance your tires using lead weights—and their bare hands.
The nuclear industry needs to store hazardous nuclear waste for thousands of years and not have it leach into the water supply. Cost is not really a consideration. The best solution that all of our technology arrived at? Embed the waste in glass, in a process called ’vitrification’. Apparently no other material will prevent the nuclear waste from being leached into the environment by water as well as glass. If glass can keep nuclear waste from leaching into water over thousands of years, it seems likely that glass can keep lead from leaching into water for the few hours a month of playing time in a glass armonica players lifetime. Acids, over time, can leach the lead out of lead glass. So they recommend that you not drink alcoholic beverages (which are acidic) that have been stored in lead glass decanters for months at a time. Lead is only absorbed through the skin when suspended in organic liquids like gasoline[???]—water, and glass, are not organic (in the chemistry sense of that word).
Lead Poisoning Around 1800
Lead poisoning was poorly understood in Franklin’s day. And in fact Benjamin Franklin who was one of the first to realize the health hazard it posed.
Lead Poisoning and the Historical Armonica Players
It has been suggested that players got lead poisoning because they moistened the glasses by licking their fingers.[Hadlock, 525, footnote 31] But there is no mention in any of the historical literature of playing the armonica this way. Probably because it wouldn’t work: short of rabies, a human being simply cannot produce nearly enough saliva to sufficiently moisten the sides of three-dozen glasses. As a player myself, I can’t imagine why someone would even try, when a simple bowl of water is so much easier and-not gross!
“Prior to the twentieth century, lead-adulterated wines and spirits probably caused more plumbism [lead poisoning] than any other non-occupational source.”[Warren, 22]
Why the Armonica really Disappeared