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<p class="Heading-1"><span>7</span>. Composers and the Armonica</p>
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<p class="Normal">This list is far from exhaustive — mostly suggestive, and only includes composers not already covered in the previous chapter.</p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Joseph A. Schmittbauer</p>
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<p class="Normal">Joseph Aloys Schmittabauer (1718–1809) was a German composer, conductor, and armonica maker. He made Kirchgessner’s first armonica and taught her to play it. Schmittbauer was also Frick's superior when Frick was court organist to August Georg, and was a witness at Frick's wedding.</p>
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<p class="Normal">Born in Bamberg, Schmittabauer 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 in 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.</p>
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<p class="Quotation">He studied the building of the armonica, permitting a factory in the Karlsruhe 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.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">1</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">Schmittbauer was an active music pedagogue, and his daughter Therese became a successful singer and pianist in Basel.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">2</span> His most illustrious student, however, was Marianne Kirchgessner, whom he instructed from about 1781 to 1791.</p>
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<p class="Normal">At his retirement in 1804 (he was honored with the title Oberkapellmeister in 1806) his son Abbé Ludwig Joseph Schmittbauer (1755–1829), a lieder composer, took over his position at court. His two other sons, August (b. 1763), a clarinetist and flautist, and Nepomuk, a violinist, also belonged to the Karlsruhe Hofkapelle.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">3</span></p>
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<p class="Quotation">Mr. Kapellmeister Schmittbauer 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.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">4</span></p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Johann A. Hasse</p>
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<p class="Normal">Johann Adolph Hasse (1699–1783) was a German composer. We have already met him as the composer of the work <span class="Book-Title">L’Armonica</span> for the Davies sisters.</p>
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<p class="Normal">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 <span class="Book-Title">Antigonus</span>. 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. </p>
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<p class="Normal">On the other hand he gained the friendship of Alessandro Scarlatti (1660– 1725), 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 <span class="Book-Title">Sesostrato</span>, 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 (b. 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 where he was tempted by the aristocratic clique inimical to Handel to become his rival and antagonist. But this he modestly and wisely declined, remaining in London only long enough to superintend the rehearsals for his opera <span class="Book-Title">Artaserse</span> (first produced at Venice, 1730).</p>
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<p class="Normal">All this while Faustina had remained at Dresden, she was 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 <span class="Book-Title">L’Armonica</span> for Marianne Davies on the armonica and her sister Cecilia the singer. His last work for the stage was the opera <span class="Book-Title">Ruggiero</span> (1771), written for the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este at Milan.</p>
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<p class="Normal">On the same occasion a work by Mozart, then fourteen years old, was performed, and Hasse observed “this youngster will surpass us all.” Hasse settled at his wife's birthplace of Venice, and there he died.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">5</span></p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Johann G. Naumann</p>
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<p class="Normal">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 <span class="Book-Title">Il tesoro insidiato</span>.</p>
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<p class="Normal">Two years later, Naumann’s <span class="Book-Title">Li creduti spiriti</span>, 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 <span class="Book-Title">La clemenza di Tito</span>, staged in Dresden in 1769. Naumann’s next stay in Italy (1772–1774) further consolidated his reputation as a major operatic composer. (Naumann’s <span class="Book-Title">Le nozze disturbate</span> was produced by Haydn in Esterh<span>á</span>za in 1780.) Subsequently he was finally appointed Kapellmeister at Dresden in 1776.</p>
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<p class="Normal">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, <span class="Book-Title">Cora och Alonzo</span>, was staged for the inauguration of the Royal Opera House. In 1782 Gustavus III commissioned a Swedish nationalist opera, <span class="Book-Title">Gustaf Wasa</span>, which received its premiere in 1786 and remained Sweden’s most popular opera for over a century with more than 250 performances.</p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1780 Naumann took a strong interest in the armonica, and wrote several works for it including a set of 12 sonatas.</p>
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<p class="Normal">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.</p>
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<p class="Normal">After a performance stay in Berlin in 1788/89 he returned to Dresden, where he died in 1801.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">6</span></p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Wolfgang A. Mozart</p>
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<p class="Normal">Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) hardly needs introduction. He was born in Salzburg, now in Austria. 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. </p>
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<p class="Normal">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. 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 recovery was considered by Leopold as a proof of God’s intentions concerning the child.</p>
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<p class="Normal">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 happened to be standing on the balcony of their lodgings when they saw the Davies family arriving in Milan. Leopold writing to his wife on September 21, 1771 said:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">A few days ago Miss Davies arrived and rode past our house in the mail coach. I recognized her and she recognized 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, as I guessed that she would be staying there, since it is the most respectable inn. She, her sister, father and mother had inexpressible joy. I told their servant where Herr Hasse was staying and very soon his daughter appeared, who also was beside herself with joy, for they have been most cordial friends since they met in Vienna. They all immediately asked for you and they send you their greetings. You will surely remember Miss Davies with her glass organ [Gla<span>ß</span>-orgl]?<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">7</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">When Leopold says “I recognized her and she recognized us” and “You will surely remember Miss Davies with her <span class="char-style-override-2">glass organ</span>” it is clear that by 1771 (the date of his letter) the Mozarts 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:</p>
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<table id="table-1" class="Basic-Table">
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<colgroup>
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<col class="Row-Column-1" />
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<col class="Row-Column-2" />
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<col class="Row-Column-3" />
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</colgroup>
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<tbody>
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<tr class="Row-Column-4">
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<td class="None">
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph"><span class="char-style-override-3">Year</span><span class="char-style-override-4"></span></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1751</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1762</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Winter 1763/4</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Summer 1764</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1762–5</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1764(?) </p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1767</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1768</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">1769</p>
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</td>
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<td class="None">
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph"><span class="char-style-override-3">The Davies</span><span class="char-style-override-4"></span></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">London</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Ireland</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">London</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Paris</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">London</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Europe</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Vienna</p>
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</td>
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<td class="None">
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph"><span class="char-style-override-3">The Mozarts</span><span class="char-style-override-4"></span></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Salzburg</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1"></p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Munich, Paris, London, The Hague, Zurich</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Salzburg</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Vienna</p>
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<p class="Basic-Paragraph para-style-override-1">Vienna</p>
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</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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<p class="Normal para-style-override-2"></p>
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<p class="Normal">It would appear that both Mozart and the Davies were giving concerts in London in 1765. So they may have met around 1765 in London (or perhaps around 1769 in Vienna). Here we get some idea of what those London concerts may have been like:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">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 heard 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 Anne 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.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">8</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1773 Leopold 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:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">Herr von Mesmer, at whose house we lunched on Monday, played for us on the armonica — the glass instrument of Miss Davies — and played very well. It cost him about fifty ducats and it is very beautifully made.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">9</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">A few weeks later Leopold brought up the armonica again, mentioning to his wife that Wolfgang himself tried playing Mesmer’s instrument:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">Do you know that Herr von Mesmer plays Miss Davies’ armonica 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 also has played upon it. If only we had one!<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">10</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">In a letter of May 28, 1778, Leopold waxes eloquent about the playing of Besozzi, a famous oboist:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">He has it all! The clearness and pure intonation in the fastest runs and leaping passages is beyond description. In particular he stands out in his his ability to sustain notes where he is able to increase and decrease their volume without wavering his pure intonation in the slightest. But this <span class="char-style-override-5">messa di voce</span>, seemed almost too frequent, and made the same type of sound as the tone of glass instruments or the armonica, he produces almost the same sound.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">11</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">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).</p>
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<p class="Normal">During Mozart's unsuccessful visit to Paris, his mother died (1778).</p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1780 <span class="Book-Title">Idomeneo</span>, 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 his base of operations for the rest of his life.</p>
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<p class="Normal">As we have seen, Mozart heard Marianne Kirchgessner in 1791 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:</p>
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<ul>
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<li class="Bullets"><span class="char-style-override-6">•	</span> The Adagio in C (K617a/K356) for solo armonica</li>
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<li class="Bullets"><span class="char-style-override-6">•	</span> The Adagio and Rondo (K617) — a quintet for armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello</li>
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<li class="Bullets"><span class="char-style-override-6">•	</span> 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 — not enough to have any real idea what he had in mind.</li>
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</ul>
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<p class="Normal">Kirchgassner performed the quintet at least (K617) and presumably also the solo Adagio (K617a) in 1791. That same summer Mozart wrote his famous opera <span class="Book-Title">Die Zauberfl</span><span class="Book-Title">ö</span><span class="Book-Title">te</span> (“The Magic Flute”), in the fall his <span class="Book-Title">Requiem</span>, and died that December.</p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Ludwig van Beethoven</p>
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<p class="Normal">Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1826) was 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 Kirchgessner performed Mozart’s new works for the armonica and Mozart’s death, and a year after Rollig 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.</p>
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<p class="Normal">Unlike Mozart, Beethoven doesn’t appear to have been particularly interested in the glass armonica. Its delicate sound, after all, hardly fits with Beethoven’s musical aesthetic.</p>
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<p class="Normal">The <span class="Book-Title">Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung</span> for April 1805<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">12</span> mentions a Kirchgessner 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.</p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1815 Beethoven was commissioned to write the incidental music (Op.202/WoO 96) for a tragic play called <span class="Book-Title">Leonore Prohaska</span>,<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">13</span> written by Friedrich Duncker. Duncker was Cabinet Secretary to the King of Prussia, accompanying the King to the Congress of Vienna in 1814. Duncker brought the play with him to Vienna and asked Beethoven to compose incidental music for it.</p>
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<p class="Normal">The play tells the true story of a young woman from Potsdam who disguised herself as a man, took the name of Renz and enlisted with the Volunteer Rifles in the wars of liberation, receiving a fatal wound in a skirmish in 1813. Interest in Leonore as a national heroine ran high, and Beethoven and Dunker hoped to capitalize on it. Unfortunately they were somewhat beaten to the punch on February 23, 1814 by a “musical academy, with recitation and exhibition of paintings” that contained two items dedicated to Leonore: a poem by Fr. Pichler, recited by Dem. Adamberger, and a <span class="Book-Title">tableau vivan</span>t thought to be conceived by Fredrich Tremelan. After that Dunker and Beethoven apparently lost interest in the project.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">14</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">Four movements exist: three for orchestra and chorus, and a “Melodrama” for armonica and narrator which is less than two minutes long. The “melodrama” occurs at a point in the play where the heroine Leonore is speaking to her true love from beyond the grave:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">I entwined for you<br />Two flowers: one for love, and one for constancy.<br />Alas! All I have for you now are death’s flowers!<br />And yet, from the earth on my tomb<br />The lily and the rose bloom anew.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">15</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">Beethoven’s music for the play wasn’t published until 1888, over 50 years after his death, as part of a complete edition of his works.</p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1823, Duncker successfully persuaded the king to subscribe to Beethoven’s <span class="Book-Title">Missa Solemnis</span>.</p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Felix Mendelssohn</p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1837 a glass armonica was played in the Leipzig Gewandhaus on the occasion of a benefit concert. Orchestra Master Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) had put together a program of contemporary music which also included some scenes from Goethe’s <span class="char-style-override-5">Faust</span> composed by Prince Radziwill with some unusual sound effects. Thus, for example, he had mixed the sounds of the armonica into the first scene in which Faust enters into contact with heavenly beings and with the Earth Spirit, even though the armonica had by then become unfashionable. Mendelssohn still insisted on this alluring scene in the concert. </p>
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<p class="Normal">The problem was that he could find neither an instrument nor a player. On short notice he tried his luck with the Leipzig organist and piano tutor Helwig: </p>
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<p class="Quotation">Your Honour, as I am told by solicitor Schleinitz, is in possession of an armonica which is at orchestra pitch. May I take the liberty of asking whether this is truly so and whether in this case you might have the kindness to support us in a charity concert for which we need such an instrument (on 6th February)? There is need only for a few chords which, though, are indispensable for the composition we want to perform. With my complete esteem I am Your Honour’s most humble Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">14</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">The remark concerning “a few chords” is a slight understatement as the glass armonica is played in the first scene for 60 bars, in which a C-sharp major chord is held for 19 bars to symbolize the floating heavenly spirits. Whether or not he obtained an armonica, the charity concert was held as planned.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">17</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">Mendelssohn featured the glass armonica in another concert in Berlin in 1840.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">18</span></p>
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<p class="Heading-2">Gaetano Donizetti</p>
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<p class="Normal">Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) composed his opera <span class="Book-Title">Lucia de Lammermoor</span> in 1835. </p>
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<p class="Normal">In the opera, young Lucia is caught in the middle of a feud between her family and her true love Edgardo. Her brother forces her to forsake her love and marry for money. On their wedding night Lucia kills her unwanted bridegroom, plunges headlong into madness, then dies. When Edgardo learns of Lucia’s demise, he kills himself.</p>
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<p class="Normal">The opera is particularly famous for its ‘mad scene’ in which Lucia — covered with her groom’s blood — sings what is almost a duet with the glass armonica. (The armonica only appears in the mad scene, nowhere else in the opera.)</p>
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<p class="Normal">Although Donizetti originally scored the mad scene for armonica, he rewrote it for flutes. William Ashbrook, Donizetti scholar, has this to say:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">For the mad scene in <span class="Book-Title">Lucia</span>, Donizetti conceived the daring notion of using a glass harmonica, the instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin, to add a novel timbre of eerie sweetness to this scene. It is not clear who suggested this notion to Donizetti, whether he knew the compositions for it by Mozart and Beethoven, or even where he had heard the instrument demonstrated, perhaps in Paris, where he had been not long before he started to compose <span class="Book-Title">Lucia</span>. Neither is it clear why he discarded the idea of using the glass harmonica, whether it was impossible to find a proficient performer, or whether the instrument proved itself impracticable for its intended purpose during rehearsal. In any event, the music originally assigned to the glass harmonica (which Donizetti refers to in his autograph as armonico) was later written in for the flute.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">19</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">Fortunately the mystery appears solved:</p>
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<p class="Quotation">Recent research during preparation of the critical edition of <span class="Book-Title">Lucia di Lammermoor</span> has finally clarified the historical situation. Donizetti apparently wrote the part for a specific performer, Domenico Pezzi, who rehearsed the music not only with the original Lucia, Fanny Tacchinardi, but with the full orchestra. Pezzi, however, had sued the theater concerning his services for a ballet entitled <span class="Book-Title">Amore e Psiche</span>, first performed earlier that year at the Teatro San Carlo on 30 May 1835. Court papers preserved in the Neapolitan state archives make clear that there was bad blood between Pezzi and the theater, which at some point during the run of twenty-six performances of <span class="Book-Title">Amore e Psiche</span> had substituted a flute for Pezzi’s glass harmonica. Surely Donizetti was told to avoid Pezzi. With no other experienced player available, the composer fell back on a flute.<span class="Endnote-Reference char-style-override-1">20</span></p>
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<p class="Normal">In 1845 Donizetti was institutionalized for insanity, and died in 1848 at the age of 50.</p>
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