Benjamin Franklin & the Glass Armonica
Franklin and Electricity
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was born in Boston, the 12th of 13 children. His father was a candle/soap maker, and expected Benjamin to follow in that trade. Consequently Benjamin only received two years of formal schooling.
Apprenticing Benjamin to be a candle/soap maker didn’t go well. Finally, in exasperation, Benjamin’s father decided to apprentice him to Benjamin’s older brother James, the printer. The rest, as they say, is history. By 1748, at the age of 42, Franklin was financially successful enough to retire from business and devote himself to science and politics.
In 1751 he published his celebrated Experiments and Observations on Electricity, in London. Franklin’s ideas were welcomed in Italy. In 1755 Francesco Algarotti wrote to a friend:
Behold from English America there come to us not only tobacco and indigo, but also philosophical systems. From Philadelphia a Quaker has sent us the most beautiful observations, the most beautiful reasonings in the world on electricity; and all our European electricians must doff their hats to this American.
quoted in Pace (1958), 17
Two years later Algarotti wrote another letter:
Who ever would have believed a while ago that England, which was reputed to be a country of louts, would excel so and legislate in matters of science? . . . Father Beccaria, with the most elegant and decisive experiments, is engaged in illustrating the system of Franklin; and Italy confirms more and more the laws of English electricity.
quoted in Pace (1958), 17
Franklin’s ideas didn’t receive quite so warm a welcome in England or France. Not that Franklin didn’t have staunch supporters in both countries from the beginning. But the British were inclined to look upon their colonials as semi-barbarians, and later as traitors. The French were more cordial, and it was the D’Alibard translation of Franklin’s works that “broke the English boycott” and brought Franklin’s name to universal attention. But France was more accustomed to originating new ideas herself than receiving them from foreigners, and Franklin’s ideas did arouse some resentment as a sort of threat to the French national pride. “This spirit of injured pride found its least inhibited expression in the antagonism of the huffy royal preceptor, the Abb Jean Antoine Nollet, who was reluctant to surrender a reputation freshly won with a plausible theory of effluvia to account for the action of electrified bodies.” At first Nollet thought that Franklin’s discoveries were a hoax by his enemies. When the reality of the threat to his prestige became clear, he counterattacked with a volume of nine Letters on Electricity (Paris, 1753). Six of the letters were destructive criticism addressed directly to Franklin. “Around Nollet rallied a formidable party of anti-Franklinists who, by virtue of the royal patronage enjoyed by their leader, exercised considerable influence in the schools and in the Royal Academy of Sciences, acting thereby as a strong obstacle to the acceptance of Franklin’s ideas.”
Pace (1958), 18
Pace (1958), 18
Italy, however, had no such prejudices. Except in music, the Italians had no particular pretensions of superiority. The various wars of succession in Italy had come to an end with the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, so from 1748 until the peninsula was caught in the maelstrom of revolution after 1795, the prevailing atmosphere was one of peaceful reform and accelerating intellectual activity. The sciences in particular profited from this improved environment.
So it’s not surprising that the Italians were stirred to immediate action by the news of the successful outcome of the experiments by D’Alibard and de Lor in May 1752, which established the fact of atmospheric electricity (lightning) in accordance with Franklin’s theories. At least four Italians corroborated the experiment before Franklin set up his own lightning rod in September of that year.
One of them was Father Giambatista Beccaria (1716–1781), Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Turin. His observations began on July 2 of that year, with a conductor erected on his own home. By the first week in August he had proved beyond doubt that clouds can be charged positively as well as negatively, an observation Franklin did not make until the following spring, and which he hesitated to announce until after the appearance of Beccaria’s first book on electricity.
Beccaria’s Artificial and Natural Electricity, published in Turin in 1753, “a most systematic exploitation of Franklin’s germinal ideas conducted according to mathematical expository method and bolstered with ingenious and meticulously controlled experimentation, gave the status of science to what had been in the main the amusement of dilettantes and the baggage of charlatans. Its author was immediately acclaimed as the leading electrologist by all the fair-minded, including Franklin” Franklin’s opinion of Beccaria’s book was that it was “one of the best pieces on the subject in any language.” And Beccaria’s exhaustive experimentation made him an authority on the subject second to no one. Franklin was definitely at a disadvantage defending his ideas, being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, and increasingly involved in political matters. He could hardly have found a better champion for his theories than Beccaria, who devoted the rest of his life to promoting and extending Franklin’s ideas on electricity, and to defeating all challengers.
Pace (1958), 20–21
Quoted in Pace (1958), 53
By 1757 Franklin and Beccaria were corresponding—an exchange which continued for a quarter of a century until Beccaria’s death. Franklin never ceased to feel that he owed Beccaria a profound debt of gratitude. And Franklin’s recognition benefited Beccaria in turn: “so delighted was Beccaria’s sovereign for the recognition accorded his subject [by his association with the famed Franklin] that he immediately increased his stipend, awarded him a pension, and ’in a thousand other most gracious ways manifested how great was his appreciation.”’
Pace (1958), 55
Meanwhile, the practical application of his electrical ideas—the lightning rod—wasn’t immediately embraced with open arms either. One group that opposed them was essentially superstitious: lightning rods were “thwarting God’s will”; holy water and the ringing of church bells were the only unsacrilegious defense against lightning. The other group objected on a more scientific basis: the Marquis Chigi, for example, maintained that “electricity does not exist in the natural state, that lightning is not at all an electrical phenomenon, that pointed conductors can in no way keep lighting from forming, and that they are of no use in receiving and dispersing strokes.”
Pace (1958), 28
Matters came to a head when the Grand Duke ordered lightning rods to be placed on the cathedral and the Gothic tower of the city hall in Siena. Hot controversy divided the citizens of the little medieval city, with the Marquis Chigi on the one hand and the university professors on the other. “Once the rod was up,” according to a contemporary report, “one can say that never was a wedding day awaited with so much anxiety as was a storm by the two parties.” Fortunately they didn’t have to wait long. A colleague at the University of Siena describes the spectacular event:
Quoted in Pace (1958), 29
It will not be easy to find a similar observation attested in all its circumstances by a large number of people, who, in a thickly frequented public square, in plain daylight, and with all their attention, had their eyes turned toward an extremely high tower to observe the action of the conductor recently placed upon it, and who, without a long wait, had the fortune to admire, to the glory of Philosophy, the intelligence and the genius of the immortal Mr. Franklin, who, extending, so to speak, his prodigious hand over the square of Siena on the 18th of April, took by the hair a horrible lightning bolt and forced it to pass along a route mapped out by his great mind, with express orders not to damage a building on which it has so many times vented its furious strength. The people of Siena, always grateful to one who does good to humanity, are surprised that statues have so often been raised to those who have ruined cities and that they are so seldom raised to those who preserve them. If Mr. Franklin . . . reads the present account, he will surely feel an ineffable consolation upon hearing about his fine triumph and the applause given to him by people so far from his country, who see in his marvelous lightning rod the most distinguished trophy of his immortal genius.
Quoted in Pace (1958), 30
One of Franklin’s lifelong dreams was to visit Italy, and his friend and colleague Beccaria—a visit that never happened. Neither would Beccaria’s king permit a visit to Franklin in Paris during the American Revolution—apparently afraid he would ’take a liking to American maxims’.
Pace (1958), 10
Pace (1958), 69
Franklin Invents the Glass Armonica
From 1757 to 1762 Franklin lived in London, lobbying Parliament on behalf of the Pennsylvania colonial legislature. His experiments with electricity had already made him famous in the scientific community, and the candle/soap maker’s son had reached the top of the political and social scene as well.
Franklin was keenly interested in music and had an extensive knowledge of it. He loved to sing, to write new words for old songs, played several instruments, including the harp and the viol da gamba as a capable amateur, and surrounded himself with music wherever he lived.
Cohn (1992), 293
His tastes were for ’simple music’, Scottish airs in particular, and one of his letters is a rather scathing attack on Handel arias. He also wrote a treatise on music theory, and apparently composed a string quartet. On the other hand, Franklin apparently had little use for professional musicians (an attitude shared by the colonists in general): to illustrate social parasitism, he could think of no better symbol than a “fiddling man,” whose activity results in no tangible product (bricks, for example) so that either the poverty or the labor of the rest of mankind is increased. During his first trip to France in 1767, he was more interested in the means the French used to ventilate their theaters than in the performances. Franklin also printed sheet music in his print shop.
Papers of Benjamin Franklin 9:539ff: before 1765 to his brother Peter Franklin
Papers of Benjamin Franklin 12:162ff: June 2, 1765 to Lord Kames
Grenander (1972), 183. Franklin scholars are divided whether Franklin actually wrote the quartet in question. Having seen the score and heard the work, it is definitely the sort of piece a highly intelligent person without formal musical composition training might write.
Pace (1958), 268: ??? Smyth 9:246
??? Smyth 5:53
??? H.R.Marraro, Italian Music and Actors in America During the Eighteenth Century, Italica 23: 104, 1946
Franklin attended concerts frequently. One was a charity performance of Handel’s Messiah at which Handel himself had been scheduled to perform (May 3, 1759), but Handel inconveniently died on April 14. The concert was conducted instead by Handel’s protegee John Smith, and still raised over £400. In France in 1781 Franklin attended a concert in which he narrowly escaped death when the opera house caught fire and burned.
Papers of Benjamin Franklin 8:339, footnote
Cohn (1992), 292
Another less hazardous concert was on the musical glasses, given by Edward Delaval (whom we have already met), probably in 1761. It was from this concert that Franklin was inspired to invent a more convenient arrangement of the glasses.
It is not entirely certain just when Franklin devised the armonica, had his first instrument made, and began to play it. The evidence is strong, however, that these events took place at least as early as 1761, and by early the following year a protegée, Miss Marianne Davies, (pg.119) was giving public performances. On April 13, 1761, Thomas Penn wrote Governor Hamilton that BF was spending his time “in philosophical, and especially in electrical matters, ... and musical performances on glasses,” but these words could refer to his preliminary efforts on water-tuned drinking glasses before he had fully worked out the idea. (Penn Papers, Hist. Soc. PA.) Clearer evidence is found in a diary entry of Dr. William Stukeley, May 22, 1761: “Visited Dr. Franklyn, the electric genius. He has made a dulcimer of wooden sticks, very sweet; another of glass bells, that warble like the sound of an organ.” The Family Memoirs of the Rev. William Stukeley, M.D. (Publications of the Surtees Society, LXXX), III 480. The term “glass bells” makes certain that BF was here using something quite different from drinking glasses, and “warble like the sound of an organ” suggests that he was not striking them with sticks or small hammers. The instrument had certainly passed the experimental stage well before the end of the year. (Papers of Benjamin Franklin 10:118–119)
It’s no surprise that he devised an elegant design that simultaneously eliminated the water tuning (and the problem of constant evaporation), increased the playability and reduced the size of the instrument. He eliminated the water tuning by having each glass made with the correct size and thickness to give the desired pitch without being filled with any water, and made the set of glasses more compact and playable by nesting them inside each other, mounted on a spindle which was turned by a foot treadle.
Except during thunder storms, when Franklin would hook a kite up to his armonica! <wink!>
Franklin contacted Hughes and Company, at the Cockpit Glasshouse, and received the services of Charles James, who made the glasses for the first instrument. Franklin’s new invention was announced in the Bristol Journal for January 12th, 1762:
The celebrated glassy-chord, invented by Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia: who has greatly improved the musical glasses, and formed them into a compleat instrument to accompany the voice; capable of a thorough bass, and never out of tune. Miss Davies from London, was to perform in the month of January, several favourite airs, English, Scotch and Italian, on the Glassychord (being the only one of the Kind that has yet been produced) accompanied occasionally with the voice and the German Flute.
Quoted in Papers of Benjamin Franklin 10:119, fn. The editors of PBF have been unable to find any copy of the Bristol Journal for the appropriate period or to determine from which London newspaper the item might have been taken.
Thus Franklin’s initial name for his invention was the ’glassy-chord’, a good, stout, practical English name. Its first public performance was by Marianne Davies, whom we shall consider shortly.
Franklin made plans to visit Italy—in part to visit his good friend Beccaria. But the visit wasn’t to be. On 13 July 1762, a month before sailing from England to terminate five years of service as colonial agent for the Province of Pennsylvania, Franklin took quill in hand to bid farewell to friends whom he could not see in person. Among them Father Beccaria:
the complete letter can be found in the appendix[???]
London,
July 13, 1762
Reverend Sir,
I once promised myself the pleasure of seeing you at Turin, but as that is not now likely to happen, being just about returning to my native country, America, I sit down to take leave of you (among others of my European friends that I cannot see) by writing.
Franklin thanks Beccaria again for his work on electricity. He then turns his attention to the main topic of the letter: the glass armonica:
Perhaps, however, it may be agreeable to you, as you live in a musical country, to have an account of the new instrument lately added here to the great number that charming science was before possessed of: As it is an instrument that seems peculiarly adapted to Italian music, especially that of the soft and plaintive kind, I will endeavour to give you such a description of it, and of the manner of constructing it, that you, or any one of your friends may be enabled to imitate it, if you incline so to do, without being at the expence and trouble of the many experiments I have made in endeavouring to bring it to its present perfection.
You have doubtless heard the sweet tone that is drawn from a drinking-glass, by passing a wet finger round its brim. One Mr. Pockeridge, a gentleman from Ireland, was the first who thought of playing tunes, formed of these tones. He collected a number of glasses of different sizes, fixed near each other on a table, and tuned them by putting into them water, more or less as each note required. The tones were brought out by passing his finger round their brims. He was unfortunately burnt there, with his instrument, in a fire which consumed the house he lived in. Mr. E. Delaval, a most ingenious member of our Royal Society, made one in imitation of it, with a better choice and form of glasses, which was the first I saw or heard.
If Delaval was the ’first I saw or heard’, Franklin must not have attended any of Anne Ford’s notorious performances in London in 1760 and 1761. Franklin continues...
Being charmed by the sweetness of its tones, and the music he produced from it, I wished only to see the glasses disposed in a more convenient form, and brought together in a narrower compass, so as to admit of a greater number of tunes, and all within reach of hand to a person sitting before the instrument, which I accomplished, after various intermediate trials, and less commodious forms, both of glasses and construction, in the following manner.
Franklin concludes the letter:
The advantages of this instrument are, that its tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they may be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, being once well tuned, never again wants tuning.
In honour of your musical language, I have borrowed from it the name of the instrument, calling it the Armonica.
With great esteem and respect, I am, Etc.
B. Franklin
Here Franklin called it the “armonica”, after the Italian for “harmony” which is armonia. It is curious that Franklin chose to unveil the new instrument as he did, communicating to an Italian and baptizing it with an Italian name, after it had become known about London as the “Glassy-Chord”. Furthermore, the correspondence between Franklin and Beccaria before and after the armonica letter contain no other comparable departure from scientific and personal matters. Yet Franklin was nothing if not practical. He was convinced that the armonica was an important addition to the family of musical instruments, perhaps destined to supersede the harpsichord and piano. As previously with his stove and lightning rod, he must have been anxious to see humanity blessed with the new invention as soon as possible. “That intent could obviously be no better served than by having his instrument adopted and cultivated in the land that was the musical Mecca to which the western world still turned for diversion and instruction. What then more logical than for him to dedicate his new instrument to a prominent Italian in order to take advantage of Italy’s musical hegemony? An Italian name for the invention, along with a national compliment or two for good measure, was probably calculated to contribute further to put the Italians in a receptive mood.” And Beccaria had so effectively championed Franklin's electrical ideas—mightn't Franklin consider him a likely champion for his musical ones as well? Alas, Beccaria did nothing with Franklin’s invention.
Pace (1958), 273: BF Memoirs, 422 (nothing there!?!) ???
2Pace (1958) 273–4
The earliest known appearance of the name “armonica” is in an advertisement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal, May 29, 1762:
The Armonica. Being the musical glasses without water, formed into a compleat instrument capable of a thorough bass and never out of tune, made by Charles James, of Purpool Lane, near Gray’s Inn, London. N.B.—The maker is the person who has been employed in the management of the Glass Machines from the beginning, by the ingenious and well-known inventor, which are on the same principles and guided by the same hand as that played on by Miss Davies at Spring Gardens, London, at Bath and Bristol.
??? Quoted in King (1946) p.107–108. The London Chronicle, June 17–19, 1762, carried a similar advertisement by James in which he explained that the armonica “may be so constructed, as to be either a Portable Instrument, or Genteel Piece of Furniture.” (Papers of Benjamin Franklin 10:118)
Further, in the biography prefixed to Sparks’s Works of Benjamin Franklin  (London, 1882, vol.1, p.264) we read that the instruments were manufactured in London at the price of forty guineas.
King (1946), 107ff A guinea was L1-1s-0d (which is L1.05). It was considered a more gentlemanly amount than £1. You paid tradesmen, such as a carpenter, in pounds but gentlemen, such as an artist, in guineas. It was a tradition in the legal profession that a barrister was paid in guineas but kept only the pounds, giving his clerk the shillings. A guinea coin contained about .24 ounces of gold, making it worth approximately $US 125 (in 2006). Thus an armonica would have cost approximately $5000 in 2006 US dollars. ???
Apparently having James make his first instrument hadn’t gone smoothly, because when Franklin went back to the Cockpit Glasshouse to build another instrument, he asked for another glassblower. A Mr. Barnes was selected to try his hand, and he provided Franklin an “improved version” of the glasses, which were worthless for Franklin’s purposes. Meanwhile, in June 1762, James went into business for himself. He took out an ad in the London Journal, in which he called himself “the Maker who has been employed by the Gentleman who is the real inventor, in the first ever made in England, and continues to be honored with his approbation”.
London Chronicle, June 17–19, 1762 ???
Becker (1998), 20
Franklin was unhappy with the situation, but was consumed with his impending departure for the Colonies (Sept. 1762) and had no time to correct it. Writing to Polly Stevenson from Philadelphia, March 25, 1763, he expressed his regret that James, already flagging in production, was “dilatory,” and then commented:
I was unlucky in both the workman that I permitted to undertake making thos instruments. The first was fanciful, and could never work to the purpose, because he was ever conceiving some new Improvement that answer’d no end: the other is absolutely idle. I have recommended a number to him from hence, but must stop my hand.
???
Complaints continued: in a letter to Francis Hopkinson, Aug. 15, 1765, Franklin writes:
“. . . It vexes me to hear that Miss Kennedy’s Armonica is so badly made . . . James is broke, as indeed his Head, if not his Neck, ought to have been, for serving her so basely, and abusing my Recommendation.”
???
When back in England in 1770, a friend asked Franklin about James claim that he was the official builder. Franklin confirmed the claim to the extent that “James is the only workman here acquainted with such matters, and, a very negligent, dilatory man.” James was “now unable to supply one of my friends because, awaiting the pleasure of Mr. James, at length, he [the friend] died suddenly.” Franklin settled on sending instructions to persons interested in buying one.??? Meanwhile, when Jefferson (in Paris) inquired in 1787 of John Trumbull (in London) about an armonica, Trumbull replied:
Franklin had returned to Philadelphia in ???
I am told the Harmonica is never made to exceed three octaves. For one of that kind Longman & Brodsip ask me thirty guineas. I will enquire further on this subject.
Letters TJ 1787, 10/30
Which would seem to suggest that Longman & Brodsip were stepping into the gap left by Charles James.
Nevertheless, nothing Franklin wrote between 1757 and 1762, no experiment he undertook and carried out, absorbed him more happily than his musical invention. And apparently his daughter Sally learned to play as well, as a portrait of her playing the armonica was painted. Unfortunately, the painting has never been found.
Van Doren (1991), 299
Papers of Benjamin Franklin 13:523
The Armonica: Franklin’s Lifelong Companion
Franklin was doubtless proficient on his own instrument, “and often may have spent his leisure hours with playing on it Italian music of the ’soft and plaintive kind”’.6 It may have even enticed him away from his duties as colonial agent for Pennsylvania, because a report to his Governor in the spring of 1761 said:
I believe he has spent most of his time in philosophical, and especially in electrical matters, having generally company in a morning to see those experiments, and musical performances on glasses, where any one that knows him carries his friends.
??? Pace (1958) 273, Sparks 7:243 fn
The earliest mention of BF’s performance on the armonica after his return to Philadelphia is in a letter dated Dec. 3, 1762, from Mrs. Ann Graeme to her daughter Elizabeth, the girl William, Franklin’s son, had jilted. Mrs. Graeme had called upon the Franklins the day before (about a month after BF had arrived); although the situation necessarily involved considerable strain, “we appear’d to have a very easy afternoon,” and at the caller’s request BF gave her “a tune on the Harmonica.”
See Papers of Benjamin Franklin 7:177ff
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, xxxix (1915), 270–1
Considering the state of glassmaking in the Colonies, it’s unlikely that Franklin had another instrument made by American craftsmen when he returned to Philadelphia in 1762. This is confirmed by ongoing correspondence we have of him trying to get armonica glasses from London. Thus it would seem that Franklin brought his London-made armonica with him to Philadelphia. At the same time, Marianne Davies has an instrument with which she starts concertizing right away (we shall consider Miss Davies presently) which suggests that Franklin had a second instrument made before his return to Philadelphia.
???
The jewel of Franklin’s house in Philadelphia was the music room, called the blue room, on the third floor. Graced with gilt carvings, an ornamental fireplace, and decorative chairs and screens, it featured Sally’s harpsichord and Franklin’s beloved glass armonica, whose ethereal sweetness was well-suited to the Scottish songs Franklin loved so well. Playing duets with Sally on the harpsichord was one of his greatest pleasures. Eventually the music room would boast a welsh harp, a bell harp, tuned bells, and a viola da gamba, all much used by his musical family.
I play some of the softest Tunes on my Armonica, with which Entertainment our People here are quite charmed and conceive the Scottish Tunes to be the finest in the World. And indeed, there is so much simple Beauty in many of them, that in my Opinion they will never die, but in all ages find a Number of Admirers.
??? Benjamin Franklin, December 11, 1763
He himself took great pleasure from playing his armonica; he carried one home with him when he sailed a few weeks after writing this letter to Beccaria, and always thereafter seems to have had one in his living quarters wherever he might be.
Franklin was much loved and enjoyed a lively social life in England and Europe. He usually brought his armonica along to parties. Apparently word about this got back to the colonies, much to the chagrin of Thomas Penn who wrote a report to Governor Hamilton complaining that Benjamin Franklin was happily spending his time in “philosophical matters and musical performances on glasses.”
???
There is a story printed in an early Irish musical dictionary of how, upon his return to America, while Franklin’s wife was asleep, he went up to the attic of his Philadelphia home and set up his armonica which she had not yet heard. Having set it up, he started to draw forth its “angelick strains”. Floating down from above, these sounds were apparently so heavenly, that “his wife awakened with the conviction that she had died and gone to heaven and was listening to the music of the angels.”
???
When Franklin went to France in 1776, we know he left his armonica behind in Philadelphia--likely the ship on which he sailed was as small and fast as possible to evade the British blockade. ??? On 14 July 1778 Franklin’s son-in-law, Richard Bache, reported on the state of his house following its occupation by a “rapacious” band of British soldiers. Even before listing the missing books and scientific equipment, Bache lamented that they had carried off “some of your musical Instruments, viz: a welch harp, bell harp, the set of tuned bells which were in a box, Viol de Gambo, all the spare Armonica Glasses and one or two of the spare cases. You armonica is safe.”
Sonneck (1916)27:89 ???
Meanwhile, we know that Franklin played the armonica for his friends in France—it’s a mystery where this instrument came from. When he visited his beautiful friend, Madame Brillon, an accomplished musician and composer, she would accompany his armonica playing on the pianoforte. Its ethereal, haunting notes with a touch of melancholy made it a favorite at weddings. One author wrote, “The ear of a mortal can perceive in its plaintive tones the echoes of a divine harmony.”??? Abbé Morellet enlivened their gatherings [w/Mesdames Helvévtius & Brillon] singing in French Franklin’s favorite Scottish ballads while the Doctor accompanied him on the armonica. For a dinner in honor of Franklin held sometime around Independence Day, the abb toasted him in a highly complementary song of his own composition with a heady refrain: “Le verre en main / Chantons nˆotre Benjamin” (“With glass in hand / Sing to our Franklin”).
Sonneck (1916)30:lxiii
An inventory of Franklin’s instruments at the time of his death includes a viola da gamba, bells, harpsichord, glass armonica, spinet, Chinese gong, and a “Glassichord”. The reader will recall that the ’glassichord’ was the initial name that Franklin gave to the armonica. Yet, clearly if the armonica has already been listed in the inventory, the person listing the inventory wouldn’t have listed the same instrument with an additional name. Thus the glassichord must be a different musical instrument altogether. Therein lies a tale:
In the winter of 1784/85, a Parisian physician named Beyer approached Franklin with an idea for constructing a kind of glass xylophone, played by means of mechanical hammers controlled by a keyboard. Franklin must have been intrigued by the idea, and gave Beyer his endorsement. Beyer presented a prototype to the Académie des Sciences in the spring of 1785, and received an enthusiastic reception. He then reminded Franklin of his promise to give a name to what the inventor had been calling simply ’the instrument’. Ever frugal, Franklin found a use for his formerly abandoned name, christened it the ’glasschord’, and purchased one to take home with him to Philadelphia. Jefferson saw the instrument a week before Franklin left France and found it charming. Its tone was exceptionally sweet, he said, and Jefferson only regretted that its three-octave range was too short.
PTJ 8:263 ???
Franklin’s famous Autobiography ends in 1757—three years short of his invention of the armonica. But we know from his outline for the rest of his book that he had planned on devoting a chapter to it.
Ferrand (1949), 422
Franklin Uses His Armonica for ’Healing’
Benjamin Franklin himself, the inventor of the glass armonica, used his invention to heal the “melancholia” of Princess Izabella Czartoryska of Poland.
Here is her own account, written in 1772:
I was ill, in a state of melancholia, and writing my testament and farewell letters. Wishing to distract me, my husband explained to me who Franklin was and to what he owed his fame.. . . Franklin had a noble face with an expression of engaging kindness. Surprised by my immobility, he took my hands and gazed at me saying: pauvre jeune femme [’poor young lady’]. He then opened an armonica, sat down and played long. The music made a strong impression on me and tears began flowing from my eyes. Then Franklin sat by my side and looking with compassion said, “Madam, you are cured.” Indeed in that moment I was cured of my melancholia. Franklin offered to teach me how to play the armonica—I accepted without hesitation, hence he gave me twelve lessons.
translated in Lipowski, Z. J. (1984), Benjamin Franklin as a psychotherapist: A forerunner of brief psychotherapy. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 27, 361-366. p.362
??? Madame Brillon plays the armonica (Lopez, Claude-Anne; Mon Cher Papa, Franklin and the Ladies of Paris; Yale 1996; p. 83)
??? Franklin, accompanied by Madame Brillon, did pay a visit to Mesmer (when???), but their purpose, it seems, was more musical than scientific-they were interested in the armonica Mesmer used for background music during his treatments. That the visit was somewhat strained, with the guests trying to keep the conversation on music, and the host trying to promote his medical theories, is reflected by an exclamation of Madame Brillon in one of her several evocations of paradise—this one dated Nov. 1, 1779—“in heaven, M. Mesmer will content himself with playing the armonica and will not bother us with his electrial fluid!”1 In 1789 BF & Mme. Brillon went to Mesmer’s house in Paris to hear him play. (PBF X,123 n). Franz Schubert played at a mesmeric session conducted by the painter Carolsfeld in 1825. [Horden, P. Music as Medicine, p. 328]
Attempts at Improving Franklin’s Invention
Water Trough
A trough was sometimes placed beneath the row of glasses. Many sources assert that this was filled with water so the glasses would remain constantly wet
e.g. Papers of Benjamin Franklin 10:124, Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians ???, etc.
As any armonica player can atest, however, keeping the glasses moist is simply not a problem. One good ’dip’ at the beginning is sufficient for most pieces. For longer works like the Mozart Rondo, there are more than enough places where the armonica rests while the rest of ensemble keeps playing—in these ’rest’ intervals the armonica has more than enough opportunity to remoisten the glasses—if needed. And the player also has the option of re-moistening the lower glasses with the left hand while the right hand keeps playing, and vice versa.
Singers figure out where to breathe, armonica players figure out where to dip—one of the easier aspects of playing the instrument. Nevertheless, non-armonica-players frequently assume that keeping the glasses moist must be a ’problem’ that they must solve for us. One frequently proposed solution is to have the glasses rotate through a trough of water.
So I tried it! I mounted an armonica glass we made on a glass lathe, set the speed appropriately, and then lifted a basin of water to immerse the rim to various depths.
And I discovered: rotating the glass into a trough of water has exactly the same effect as adding water to a wineglass—it lowers its pitch. And since each glass on a glass armonica is a different size, each glass will rotate into the trough with a different depth, and will consequently have its pitch altered by a different amount. In other words, rotating several dozen armonica glasses (on a typical armonica) into a trough of water will result in musical chaos.
Furthermore, when the glass was rotating through the trough of water, it was harder to play—the water dampened the sides of the glass and made it noticeably harder to make it speak. They were too wet.
The water trough also muffled the sound of the glass.
Some might suggest the glass armonica maker have the glasses appropriately out of tune so that when the trough is filled, they are put back in tune. I can only say that:  As someone who has tuned a set of armonica glasses—they are difficult enough to tune as it is. The mind boggles at what would be necessary to pre-compensate for the effect of the water trough. The water level must be extraordinarily precise. Evaporation is then a significant problem. Now we’re right back to the water tuning hassle that Franklin was trying to avoid.
So let’s see now: in order to avoid having to dip once or twice in the course of a piece of music we’re going to:
Have the hassle of filling the trough to a very precise level
Make the glasses more difficult to make speak
Make the glasses sound muffled
Make tuning very problematic if not outright impossible
All of this to solve a ’problem’ which was never a problem in the first place. In other words, the water trough is just one of those ’good ideas’ that simply wouldn’t work in practice.
There are indeed armonicas with a ’trough’. Might I suggest that the real purpose of the empty trough was to catch the inevitable water drips? That would actually be useful!
Keyboard Musical Glasses & Armonicas
We have already seen Anne Ford’s discussing of adding a keyboard to the musical glasses. Another curious example of that is found in an advertisement for performances by H.B. Victor in the Pennsylvania Packet in 1774:
Mr. Victor, Musician to her late Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, and Organist at St. Georges in London, lately arrived here, takes this method of acquainting the Musical Gentry in general, that he gives instructions on th Harpsichord, or Forte Piano, Violin, German Flute, etc., especially in the thorough Bass both in theory and practice, for that his pupils may soon come to a fundamental knowledge of that fine science.
N.B. [Note Bene: Latin for 'note well'] Mr. Victor intended to give a concert, and to perform on his new musical instruments, but is obliged to postpone it for want of able hands; the one he calls tromba doppia con Tympana, on which he plays the first and second trumpet and a pair of annexed kettle-drums with the feet all at once; the other is called cymbaline de amour, which resembles the musical glasses played by harpsichord keys [in other words, it has a keyboard], never subject to come out of tune, both of his own invention. He is to be met with at his house in Callow Hill street near Water street.”2
Several people tried to convert the armonica into a keyboard instrument as well.
Francis Hopkinson
One of these was Francis Hopkinson (1737–1791). Hopkinson was Franklin’s Philadelphia friend, and although 30 years his junior he only survived Franklin by a few months. He stood in the center of musical life in Philadelphia, as psalmodist, teacher, organist, harpsichordist, essayist, composer, and improver of the harpsichord. He was a graduate of the first class to graduate from the College of Philadelphia, and a prominent patriot of the Revolutionary War, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was admitted to the bar in 1761. He was also a bibliophile—a family tradition tells us that the Hessian officers were so impressed with the character and extent of his library in Bordentown that they did all in their power to save it from destruction. He also invented an improved candlestick and and instrument to measure distances on the high seas, and was a capable painter and caricaturist.
Sonneck (1905), 7–9
On 1786, June 28 he wrote from Philadelphia to Thomas Jefferson in Paris:
My spare Time and Attention is at present much engaged in a Project to make the Harmonica or musical Glasses to be played with Kees [keys], like an Organ. I am now far forward in this Scheme and have little Doubt of Success. It has in vain been attempted in France and England. It may therefore seem too adventurous in me to undertake it, but the Door of Experiment is open; in Case of Disappointment the Projector is the only Sufferer.
Jefferson replied on December 23, 1786:
I am very much pleased with your project on the Harmonica, & the prospect of your succeeding in the application of Keys to it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the musical world this century, not excepting the Pianoforte. If its tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as he harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. . .
In a letter of April 14, 1787, from Philadelphia, Hopkinson wrote to Jefferson:
. . . I shall now begin again upon the Harmonica. From the experiments I have made, I have no Doubt of the Success. I have already applied Keys to the Glasses, furnished with artificial Fingers which answered perfectly & most delightfully in a great Part of the Scale. Where they did not succeed so well was owing to the Glass not being truly mounted, so that I must, I find, take off the Glasses from the Spindel & mount them anew.
Hopkinson wrote again on July 8, 1787, from Philadelphia:
. . . I succeeded in making the Harmonica to be played with Kees [sic] as far as I believe the instrument is capable:— but required too much Address in the Manner of wetting the Cushions for Common Use. In the Course of my Experiments I discover’d a Method of drawing the Tone from metal Bells by Friction—to an amazing Perfection—without the necessity of Water or any Fluid. I am getting a Set of Bells cast, expect to introduce a new musical Instrument—to be called the Bellarmonic.
But for all his optimism and Jefferson’s enthusiasm, neither this nor any other attempt to turn the armonica into a satisfactory keyboard instrument proved really effective. No armonica of this sort seems to have survived, even in a museum. (PBF X,124)
Abbé Perno
In 1785 the Count de Saluces in Turin wrote to Franklin announcing that his countryman Abbé Perno had invented a keyboard armonica. In his reply of July 5, 1785 Franklin himself summarizes the difficulties of accomplishing this:
When I was in London, about 12 Years since, Mr. Steele, an ingenious Musician there, made an Attempt of that sort; but the Tones were with Difficulty produc’d by the Touch from the Keys, and the Machinery in Playing made so much Noise and Rattle, as to diminish greatly the Pleasure given by the Sound of the Glasses; so that I think the Instrument was never compleated. The Dutchess [of Villeroy] at Paris about the same time endeavour’d to obtain the same End, and has not yet laid aside the Project, tho’ it has not hitherto perfectly succeeded. Baron Feriet of Versailles, began to work on the same Idea about the Time I receiv’d your Letter; and as he is a very ingenious Man, and has a Hand to execute as well as a Head to contrive the necessary Machinery, I hoped soon to have given you an Account of his Success: but I begin to doubt it, as I hear nothing from him lately. In my Manner of Playing on my Instrument the Fingers are capable of Touching with great Delicacy; and the Glasses turn so smoothly, that one hears no other Sound but that given by the Touch. If the Instrument of Abbé Perno has the same Advantages, its being play’d with Keys gives it an undoubted Preference, and I should be glad to know the Construction.
???
In 1802 Zink, of Hesse-Homberg, built a three manual [keyboard] ‘grand pianoforte’ in which one manual was a glass armonica(!), another was a piano, and the third played several wind instruments!
Harding (1930–1931), 60
E.Power Biggs
As Lütge observes, “the keyboard armonica did not succeed despite the playing advantages, because the ethereal, penetrating sound was impaired. One wants the thrill, which the fingertips draw from the glasses. One remains with Franklin’s armonica.”[ L¨ utge, 100]
E.Power Biggs (1906–1977), the famous English concert organist, also attempted a keyboard glass armonica. He was interested in Americana and musical technology, so when, in 1956, the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s birth and 250th anniversary of Ben Franklin’s birth coincided, Biggs decided to perform Mozart’s music on Franklin’s invention. Biggs was convinced that the Mozart works could only be played on a keyboard version of the armonica, and decided to perform the Mozart works on such an instrument for the anniversary.
Here follows an excerpt from E. Power Biggs, Concert Organist, by Barbara Owen (Indiana Univ Pr, 1987, pg. 106–111) that recounts the story of Biggs “keyboard glass armonica”. . .
His voluminous correspondence and library research began early in 1955, and one of his first discoveries was that while Franklin’s own keyboardless Armonica still existed in a Philadelphia residence, not one keyboard version or fragment thereof survived anywhere. This, of course, was the instrument Biggs was most interested in, since he believed that the music by Mozart could not be played without a keyboard version. When hopes of finding a restorable antique faded, Biggs persuaded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to sponsor the construction of one, and the Academy in turn interested the Franklin Savings Bank in financing the project. One of the Academy’s members, Harlow Shapley of the Harvard Observatory, caught Biggs’s enthusiasm and became a willing accomplice to his research and fund-raising activities. Work got under way in the spring of 1955, with the deadline for completion a year away. By November the glasses were finished, and Biggs and Schlicker [a preeminent organ builder] went to the Corning plant the following month to assist in their tuning. By January the glasses were being fitted to the mechanism in Schlicker’s shop, and the problems began showing up. Corning’s glasses seem to have been partly at fault. When Schlicker visited the original Franklin instrument in Philadelphia he found that the old glasses were thinner, especially in the treble, and thus easier to make speak. Corning’s glasses were also somewhat irregular in shape. In addition, the rubber mounting turned out to be too soft and had to be replaced with wood; and it was discovered that the smaller glasses had to be rotated faster than the larger ones. Finding a suitable covering for the mechanical “fingers” that played the glasses from the keyboard also proved problematic. Wet pigskin and dry rubber gave the best (though slightly differing) effects, but neither was as good as human fingers. And of course there was that nemesis of all musical glasses, breakage. Biggs was still optimistic but, as he confided to John Burchard, president of the Academy, he was also “touching wood, holding on tight, and keeping my fingers crossed.
NOTE: the author and other armonica players perform this piece on a Franklin-style (no keyboard) instrument on a regular basis.
A concert featuring the new armonica and (fortunately, as it turned out) other instruments was scheduled for April 11, 1956 at the Kresge Auditorium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By March 24 there was a note of urgency, even desperation, in Biggs’s correspondence with Schlicker. Biggs had planned to come to Buffalo on the 28th “to record a few sounds” for a broadcast, but “as far as a fair chance for me to learn how to play the instrument-we’re way past it!” The Academy wanted the instrument on hand by April 3 in order to unveil it to the press. If they could not have it by then, “the concert will have to take place without it, and our work will have come to nothing, for the anniversary occasion will have passed.
The instrument arrived in time, and the concert went on, a program of works by Franklin and Mozart, performed by Biggs, six members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the popular tenor, Roland Hayes. Biggs wisely brought the Cambridge Portative [a small portable pipe organ], on which he played not only Mozart’s Fantasia in F and four of the “Epistle” Sonatas, but also the armonica part of Mozart’s Adagio and Rondo for Armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello. Although Biggs gave a preliminary demonstration of the principle of “glass music” on eight tuned glasses, the armonica itself was used only for three “’Divertimenti”—a Minuet from an armonica tutor, an Irish folksong that had been a favorite of Captain Pockrich, and Mozart’s short Adagio for Glass Armonica. The tone of the new armonica was wobbly and erratic, and was frequently accompanied by gratuitous squeaks and scrapes. As one of the students later observed, it “wasn’t quite a flop, but almost!”
The discouraging performance at the concert may have had something to do with the Franklin Savings Bank’s sudden loss of interest in the project, leaving the Academy and Biggs to hunt up a donor to make up the deficit caused by Schlicker’s extra costs in trying to perfect the mechanism. Biggs and Shapely were discouraged, but not quite ready to give up. Just enough publicity had been given the experiment to generate requests from orchestras, chamber music groups, radio, and television for concerts involving the armonica. “Unfortunately”, wrote Biggs to Ralph Burhoe, another Academy official, “in every case the answer has had to be no, because the one test of success is whether the Mozart Adagio and Rondo can be played on the Glass Armonica!” He still had hopes that it might be perfected, though, for, “It’s certain that if the Glass Armonica were successful it would fill a unique niche, and have continuing interest and use over a number of years. In the summer of 1956, Biggs received a request from his old friend Harold Spivacke of the Library of Congress for the use of the armonica in a December program linked to the Mozart/Franklin anniversaries. Biggs doubted that the instrument would be any improved by then and candidly outlined the problems: the glasses themselves were too thick and not perfectly circular, and more research was needed on the “finger” material. Between $3,000 and $4,000 (in 1956 US$) had already been expended on the instrument, and while the Academy hoped to coerce Corning into making a new set of glasses at no cost, Corning decided that it wanted nothing more to do with the project. The harpsichord makers Hubbard and Dowd suggested making a striking mechanism to operate the stationary glasses, but since the musical result would have been more that of a glassichord or celesta, this idea was quickly abandoned.
In a last desperate attempt to salvage the project, the armonica was turned over to a “think tank” of MIT engineering students. Concentrating first on sound production, the students found that their fingers, dipped in vinegar, still produced the best effect. Other substances and means of exciting the glasses, from violin bows to electronics, were tried without success. Nothing very conclusive emerged, and most of the students felt that the contraption was better as Franklin had left it, without the keyboard. One was optimistic enough to suggest that “With unlimited funds, it would serve the memory of Franklin well to establish a research project to investigate the use of different bowl and exciting materials and build an accurately engineered Armonica.” But the “unlimited funds” were nowhere to be seen. In 1958, at Biggs’s suggestion, Shapley approached Henry Ford II regarding the possibility that the glassblower at Greenfield Village might be able to produce better bowls than Corning had, but nothing came of that either.
In 1965, answering an inquiry from Leonard Labaree, editor of the Franklin Papers, Biggs gave a short and rather dispassionate account of the armonica venture. While the word “failure” was not in his vocabulary, Biggs did have to admit that “our experiment was quite inconclusive,” and, with regard to his performance of Mozart’s Adagio, K356 [K617a], “one cannot claim that the tone did any sort of justice to the music.” His vision of what might have been was still intact, though, and at the end of his letter he wrote, a bit wistfully,
’Mozart’s Adagio and Rondo, K617, which we had hoped to give with such a flourish, was played on the flute stops of the organ. The sound of a delicate flute stop, incidentally, rather resembles that of a glass armonica. Though it lacks, of course, the effect of coming from nowhere, and the slow dying away into silence, which is a quite magical effect with the glasses.’