Composers And The Armonica
This list is far from exhaustive—mostly suggestive, and only includes composers not already covered in the ’Virtuosi’ section. Composers who played a significant role (or who have interesting stories) get greater treatment. . .
J.A. Schmittbaur
Joseph Aloys Schmittabaur (1718–1809) was a German composer, conductor, and armonica maker. Born in Bamberg, he received his musical education from the organ builder J.P. Seuffert in Würzburg and was a musician at the Rastatt court from about 1745 until its dissolution 1771. There he was Konzertmeister in 1762 (leading the orchestra from the harpsichord) and Kapellmeister from 1765. In 1772 he became Konzertmeister at the Karlsruhe court, but in 1775 he went to Cologne as Kapellmeister at the cathedral and director of public concerts. In 1777 he accepted an invitation to return to Karlsruhe as Kapellmeister, and was also active there as a teacher of glass armonicas, whose range he extended to four octaves (c to c””) from Franklin’s original three.
“He studied the building of the armonica, permitting a factory in the Carlsruhe to produce them under his direction and he himself put the finishing touches on them, so that the armonicas supplied by him were truly the best heard, which one can purchase.
1???AMZ, Jg. XII, 1809/10, Sp.397, quoted in Niemöller (1962)—Festschrift, 379
Schmittbaur was an active music paedagogue, and his daughter Therese became a successful singer and pianist in Basel. His most illustrious student, however, was Marianne Kirchgaessner, whom he instructed from about 1781 to 1791.
Niemoeller (1962)—Rheinische Musiker, 90
At his retirement in 1804 (he was honored with the title Oberkapellmeister in 1806) his son, Abbé Ludwig Joseph Schmittbaur (1755–1829), a lieder composer, took his place at court. His two other sons, August (b. 1763), a clarinetist and flautist, and Nepomuk, a violinist, also belonged to the Karlsruhe Hofkapelle.
Niemoeller (1995) Page???
Mr. Kapellmeister Schmittbaur deserves to be the foremost in Germany concerning the most charming of all instruments. . . by his compositions, by his playing, and by producing superb instruments.
???AMZ, Jg. VI, 1803/04, Sp.244f, quoted in Niemöller (1962)—Festschrift, 379
In 1792 Gerber says: “He is one of our most popular composers”.
Niemöller (1962)—Festschrift, 383, can’t figure out note 75
J.A. Hasse
[??? Looks like it’s in the public domain. From the wikipedia article on Hasse] Johann Adolph Hasse (1699–1783) was a German composer. We have already met him as the composer of the work L’Armonica for Marianne Davies.
Hasse was born at Bergedorf near Hamburg and received his first musical education from his father. Having a fine tenor voice, he chose a theatrical career and joined the operatic troupe conducted by Reinhard Keiser, in whose orchestra Handel had played the second violin some years before. Hasse’s success led to an engagement at the court theatre of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and it was there that, in 1723, he made his debut as a composer with the opera Antigonus. The success of this first work induced the duke to send Hasse to Italy for the completion of his studies, and in 1724 he went to Naples and placed himself under Porpora, with whom, however, he seems to have disagreed both as a man and as an artist. On the other hand he gained the friendship of Alessandro Scarlatti, to whom he owed his first commission for a serenade for two voices, sung at a family celebration of a wealthy merchant by two of the greatest singers of Italy, Farinelli and Signora Tesi. This event established Hasse’s fame; he soon became very popular, and his opera Sesostrato, written for the Royal Opera at Naples in 1726, made his name known all over Italy. At Venice, where he went in 1727, he became acquainted with the celebrated singer Faustina Bordogni (born at Venice in 1700), who became Hasse’s wife in 1730. The two artists soon afterwards went to Dresden, in compliance with a generous offer made to them by the splendor-loving elector of Saxony, Augustus II. There Hasse remained for two years, after which he again journeyed to Italy, and also in 1733 to London, in which latter city he was tempted by the aristocratic clique inimical to Handel to become the rival and antagonist of that great master. But this he modestly and wisely declined, remaining in London only long enough to superintend the rehearsals for his opera Artaserse (first produced at Venice, 1730).
All this while Faustina had remained at Dresden, the declared favorite of the public and unfortunately also of the Elector; nor was her husband, who remained attached to her, allowed to see her except at long intervals. In 1739, after the death of Augustus II, Hasse settled permanently at Dresden till 1763, when he and his wife retired from court service with considerable pensions. But Hasse was still too young to rest on his laurels. He went with his family to Vienna, and added several operas to the great number of his works already in existence. It was in 1769, in Vienna, that he wrote the cantata L’Armonica for Marianne Davies on the armonica and her sister Cecilia the singer. His last work for the stage was the opera Ruggiero (1771), written for the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este at Milan.
On the same occasion a work by Mozart, then fourteen years old, was performed, and Hasse observed “this youngster will surpass us all.” By desire of his wife. Hasse settled at her birthplace of Venice, and there he died.
[??? Music extract in Hadlock, Women and the Glass Armonica, p.514ff.]
J.G. Naumann
Painting painted of 1780, by his brother Friedrich Gotthard Naumann [??? Need permission] Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741–1801) was a conductor, music director, and composer who wrote for the armonica. He received his earliest musical instruction at the Kreuzschule, where he was taught by the organist and Kreuzkantor Gottfried August Homilus, himself a pupil of J.S. Bach. He was invited by the Swedish violinist Wesström to tour Italy as his accompanist in 1757, but the trip proved far longer than planned. In fact, it lasted some seven years, during which Naumann studied with Tartini in Padua, Padre Martini in Bologna and Hasse in Venice. He made his debut as an operatic composer in Venice in 1762 when the Teatro San Samuele staged his Il tesoro insidiato.
Two years later, Naumann’s Li creduti spiriti, composed for the Venetian carnival in collaboration with two other composers, secured the endorsement of Hasse and Ferrandini, both of whom recommended him for a post as second church composer in Dresden. There, Naumann was soon promoted to chamber composer in 1765. Subsequently, he decided to return to Italy (1765-8), where he composed his opera La clemenza di Tito, staged in Dresden in 1769. Naumann’s next stay in Italy (1772-1774) further consolidated his reputation as a major operatic composer. (Naumann’s Le nozze disturbate was produced by Haydn in Esterh´aza in 1780). Subsequently, he was finally appointed Kapellmeister at Dresden in 1776.
In 1777, the Swedish ambassador Count Lowenhjelm asked him to travel to Stockholm, where he assisted King Gustavus III in reforming the Hovkapell. He also composed operas for the Swedish court, many of which were tremendously successful. The finest, Cora och Alonzo, was staged for the inauguration of the Royal Opera House. In 1782, Gustavus III commissioned a Swedish nationalist opera, Gustaf Wasa, which received its premiere in 1786 and remained Sweden’s most popular opera for over a century, with more than 250 performances.
In 1785, Naumann was guest opera composer and conductor for the Danish court and reorganized the opera at Copenhagen. He would not commit to an extended contract there, however, and returned to Dresden, becoming Oberkapellmeister. In 1792, he married Catarina von Grodtschilling, daughter of a Danish vice-admiral, and although during his final years he contemplated a German national opera based on his experiences in Scandinavia, it never materialized.
After a performance stay in Berlin in 1788/89 he returned to Dresden, where he died in 1801. Naumann wrote several works, including a set of 12 sonatas, for the glass armonica. [??? Groves says he suffered nervous disorders]
W.A. Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) was a prolific and highly influential composer of Classical music. His enormous output of more than six hundred compositions includes works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. And most important of all, he also composed for the glass armonica!
Mozart was born in Salzburg, now in Austria but then in the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling who survived beyond infancy was an older sister: Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart’s father Leopold (1719–1787) was one of Europe’s leading musical teachers and a noted composer in his own right. Leopold gave up composing when his son’s outstanding musical talents became evident. They first came to light when Wolfgang was about three years old, and Leopold, proud of Wolfgang’s achievements, gave him intensive musical training, including instruction in piano, violin, and organ. Leopold was Wolfgang’s only teacher in his earliest years.
During his formative years, Mozart made several European journeys, beginning with an exhibition in 1762 at the Court of the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, as well as the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking him with his father to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich, and Munich. During this trip Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other great composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, who befriended Mozart in London in 1764–65. (You’ll recall that J.C. Bach was also very helpful to the Davies sisters.) They again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. On this trip Mozart contracted smallpox, and his healing was considered by Leopold as a proof of God’s intentions concerning the child. (As we have seen, Kirchgaessner was blinded by smallpox.)
After one year in Salzburg, three trips to Italy followed: from December 1769 to March 1771, from August to December 1771, and from October 1772 to March 1773. During the first of these trips, the Mozarts were actually standing on the balcony of their lodgings when they saw the Davies family arriving in Milan. Leopold writing to his wife on 21 September [1771] said:
A few days ago Miss Davies arrived here and drove past our house in the mail coach. I recognized her and she saw us, for we happened to be standing on the balcony. A few hours later I went to call on her at the ’Three Kings’, which is not very far off, as I guessed that she would be staying there, since it is the most respectable inn. She, her sister, her father and her mother could hardly express their joy. I told their servant where Herr Hasse was staying and very soon his daughter appeared, who also was beside herself with delight, for they have been most cordial friends since they met in Vienna. They all asked for you at once and they send you their greetings. You will surely remember Miss Davies with her armonica?
Anderson (1938), 198
When Leopold says “I recognized her and she saw us” and “You will surely remember Miss Davies with her armonica” it is clear that by 1771 (the date of his letter) the Mozarts (including Wolfgang’s mother) must have been already acquainted with the Davies sisters and Marianne’s armonica. When did that occur? Comparing their timelines may give us a clue???:
Year 1751 1762 Winter 1763/4 Summer 1764 1762–5 1764(?) 1767 1768 1769 | The Davies London Ireland London Paris London Europe Vienna | The Mozarts Salzburg Munich, Paris, London, The Hague, Zurich Salzburg Vienna Vienna
We know that both Mozart and the Davies were giving concerts in London in 1765. Here we get some idea of what those concerts may have been like:
Formal concerts during the daytime required the special permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Most daytime concerts were therefore quite different in nature, being marketed as exhibitions. In much the same way as curiosities such as ’the Learned Pig’ or a mechanical chess-player, the young Mozart was in 1765 put on display, carrying out keyboard tricks, playing the harpsichord with a handkerchief over his hands, and so on. The performances took place initially at the Mozart’s Soho lodgings, later at the decidedly downmarket Swan and Hoop Tavern in Cornhill. Mozart was in fact contributing to a spate of daytime concerts in the early 1760s, coinciding with a fashion for the musical glasses; thus in 1761 one Drybutter could be heart at his house every day from noon until two o’clock, playing ten tunes to each set of company for 1/-. The glasses were one of the instruments of Ann Ford, who (contrary to some reports) reappeared at the Spring Garden Room giving half-a-crown daytime appearances from 15 October 1761 onwards. An additional incentive on one occasion in 1762 was the presence of three Cherokee chiefs, who were hawked round numerous venues this summer.
McVeigh (1993), 38–39
Marianne Davies was giving performances in London at the time. So they may have met around 1765 in London, or perhaps around 1769 in Vienna.
In 1773 father and his 17-year-old son were in Vienna and encountered the armonica again at Franz Mesmer’s house. Leopold wrote home to his wife:
Herr von Mesmer, at whose house we lunched on Monday, played to us on Miss Davies’s harmonica or glass instrument and played very well. It cost him about fifty ducats and it is very beautifully made.
Letter from Leopold Mozart to his wife, July 21, 1773; quoted from Anderson (1938) I:341–2
A few weeks later Leopold brought up the armonica again, mentioning to his wife that Wolfgang himself tried playing Mesmer’s instrument:
Do you know that Herr von Mesmer plays Miss Davies’s harmonica unusually well? He is the only person in Vienna who has learnt it and he possesses a much finer glass instrument than Miss Davies does. Wolfgang too has played upon it. How I should like to have one!
Letter from Leopold Mozart to his wife, August 12, 1773; quoted from Anderson (1938) I:343
In a letter of May 28, 1778, however, writing about the playing of Besozzi, a famous oboist, Leopold’s opinion of the armonica seems to have changed:
This mezza di voce was too frequent for my taste and has the same melancholy effect on me as the tones of the armonica, for it produces almost the same kind of sound.???
In 1777, accompanied by his mother, Mozart began a tour of Europe that included Munich, Mannheim, and Paris. In Mannheim he became acquainted with members of the Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at the time. He fell in love with Aloysia Weber, who later broke up the relationship with him. He was to marry her sister Constanze some four years later in Vienna (over his father’s vehement objections).
During his unsuccessful visit to Paris, his mother died (1778).
In 1780, Idomeneo, widely regarded as Mozart’s first great opera, premiered in Munich. The following year, he visited Vienna in the company of his employer, the harsh Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. When they returned to Salzburg, Mozart, who was then Konzertmeister, became increasingly rebellious, not wanting to follow the whims of the archbishop relating to musical matters, and expressing these views he soon fell out of favor with him, and was ultimately fired. Subsequently Mozart chose to settle and develop his own freelance career in Vienna after its aristocracy began to take an interest in him. Mozart made Vienna the “base of his operations” for the rest of his life.
As we have seen, Mozart heard Marianne Kirchgaessner in 1791see the section on Marianne Kirchgaessner and was finally inspired to compose for the armonica—with which he had been acquainted since at least his teens. In the spring of 1791 he composed:
The Adagio in C (K617a/K356) for solo armonica
The Adagio and Rondo (K617)—a quintet for armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello
He started a third quintet—a Fantasia in C (K616a), also for armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello, of which he only completed the first 13 fragmentary bars
Kirchgaessner performed the quintet at least (K617) and presumably also the solo Adagio in 1791. That summer Mozart wrote his famous opera Die Zauberflöte (“The Magic Flute”), in the fall his Requiem, and died that December.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1826) a composer certainly as famous as Mozart. He was born in Bonn. In 1787, at age 17, he visited Vienna— and met Mozart. In 1792, at age 22, he visited Vienna again—a year after Kirchgaessner performed Mozart’s new works for the armonica and Mozart’s death, and a year after Roellig moved to Vienna. In 1794 Beethoven moved to Vienna and made it his ’base of operations’ for the rest of his life—as Mozart had before him.
Unlike Mozart, Beethoven doesn't appear to have been interested in the glass armonica at all. Its delicate sound, after all, hardly fits with Beethoven’s musical aesthetic.
The Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung for April 1805 mentions a Kirchgaessner concert (“her last before her departure for Breslau”) and a repetition of a new symphony in D (no. 2) by Beethoven (“performed this time with much greater precision”)—both concerts taking place in Vienna.
col. 432
In 1815 Beethoven was commissioned to write the incidental music (Op.202/WoO 96) for a tragic play written by Friedrich Duncker (the King of Prussia’s secretary) called Leonore Prohaska. The play “tells the story of a maiden who, disguised as a soldier, fought through the war of liberation.” Among the movements for your usual Beethoven orchestra and chorus is a short little “Melodrama” for armonica and narrator—at the point in the play when the heroine Leonore is speaking to her true love from beyond the grave. The narration (written by Duncker) is as follows:
Thayer (1973), 619
I entwined for you Two flowers: one for love, and one for constancy. Alas! All I have for you now are death’s flowers! And yet, from the earth on my tomb The lily and the rose bloom anew.
Du, dem sie gewanden, es waren dein zwei Blumen f ür Liebe und Treue. Jetzt kann ich nur Todtenblumen dir weihn. Doch wachsen am meinem Leicherstein Die Lilei und Rose auf’s neue.
Due to financial problems the production of the play never occurred, so the piece wasn’t performed in Beethoven’s lifetime.??? verify
Mendelssohn
Daran wird auch Mendelssohn auf seiner intensiven Suche nach einer Harmonika, nebst Spieler, f ür eines seiner symphonischen Werke gescheitert sein (Brief an den Musiklehrer Helwig vom 1. Januar 1837; GBLbm/
bl, Add.MS.33965, s. 225ff.), der Lucia aus ähnlichem Grund ohne Harmonika stattfinden mußimte.
On January 1, 1837, no less a person than Mendelssohn wrote to a certain ’Musiklehrer Helwig’, asking him to make available an armonica in his possession for us in an orchestral charity concert, for which the instrument was indispensable.
The letter is in B.M. Add. MS. 33965, f.255. It does not bear Mendelssohn’s address and seems to have been sent by hand. ’Helwig’ may be K.F.L. Hellwig (1773–1838) who had been cathedral organist in Berlin since 1813 and teacher of music at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium. cf. H. Mendel, Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon (Berlin, 1880), Vol. 5, p. 190
Mendelssohn does not, unfortunately, specify what was the composition to be played.
King (1956) 67
Robert Schumann
29 Laut dem Artikel Glasharmonika” des Riemann Musik Lexikons 12/1967, S. 341 wurde diese im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert einfach Harmonika genannt”. Schne Belege fr diesen Sprachgebrauch bei Jean Paul und Robert Schumann finden sich bei Gerhard Dietel: Eine neue poetische Zeit”. Musikanschauung und stilistische Tendenzen im Klavierwerk Robert Schumanns, Kassel 1989, S. 83ff., wo auch auf Schumanns Polymeter Die Harmonika aus der Sammlung der Freuden- und Schmerzensthrnen hingewiesen wird; ob noch Hauptmanns Drama  ihm folgt, ist allerdings zweifel haft.
29 sound the article Glasharmonika ” of the Riemann music of encyclopedia 12/1967, P. 341 this became in 18. and 19. Century simply  Harmonika mentioned ”. Beautiful vouchers for this linguistic usage Jean Paul and Robert Schumann are with Gerhard Dietel: A recent poetic time ”. Opinion of music and stylistic tendencies in the piano work Robert Schumanns, Kassel 1989, S. 83ff., where also on Schumanns Polymeter the Harmonika from the collection of the joy and Schmerzensthrnen one refers to; whether still captain drama follows it, is however doubt detention.
Donizetti
Domenico Donizetti (1797–1848) composed his opera Lucia de Lammermoor in 1836. He originally scored the ‘mad scene’ for armonica, but later rewrote it for flute. William Ashbrook, Donizetti scholar, has this to say:
UPDATE ???