Glass harmonica making a comeback

PHILADELPHIA - Music described as "the songs of angels" was playing at an outdoor concert in Germany nearly two centuries ago when a young performer collapsed and died.

No one knew why. When more mysterious deaths followed, word began to spread of a plague - and an "instrument of death."

The victims shared this: a glass harmonica, a xylophonelike instrument whose eerie sound comes from rubbing a wet finger on the rim of glass bowls of different sizes.

Fearful German officials banned it, making the glass harmonica perhaps the only musical instrument to be outlawed as a health threat. But now, after decades of disuse, the instrument is coming back to life with a reputation for healing.

Twenty international artists gathered glass instruments in Philadelphia recently for a rare live performance. The seventh Glass Music Festival featured demonstrations, tuning lectures and slide shows of glass-blowing.

Philadelphia was chosen as the site to honor Benjamin Franklin, who created the instrument in 1761. Ralph Archbald, a longtime Franklin impersonator who owns two glass harmonicas, served as host.

Festival organizers hoped humming tones and expert performances by aficionados will spur a glass harmonica revival.

"We want to make sure this music continues," said Tim Nickerson, one of the few glass harmonica makers in the world. He recalled his first encounter: "All I thought was how beautiful and unique it was. I spent the next hour just playing."

In the late 1700s, the glass harmonica was considered the fashionable accessory of parlors and sitting-rooms. It was so popular that a year later, just before his death, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed two glass-harmonica pieces for the blind performer Marianne Kirchgessner.

But by the mid-1800s, rumors circulated of ghosts and a variety of evils: domestic squabbles, nervous disorders, premature births, even fatal disorders. Eventually, banned around the world, it became extinct.

Scientists now blame lead poisoning. In the 18th century, glass contained a significant amount of lead - lead that could have been absorbed through musicians' fingers.

Today, the instrument is made with quartz, the purest of glass, a crystal that New Agers believe possesses healing energy. And it has transformed the harmonica's reputation. Its ethereal, spooky sounds now float through film scores and classical compositions. Linda Ronstadt is producing a record about the history of glass music.

Who first raised musical tones from glass? No one is sure. Ancient Persia, China and Japan all experimented with rudimentary instruments formed by filling drinking glasses with water and striking them with sticks. The technique took a decisive turn in 1743 when an Irishman, Richard Puckeridge, began to rub glass rims with his fingers.

Franklin modified that idea. Instead of filling glasses with water, he used blown glasses of different diameters, each corresponding with different notes. By fitting bowls into one another with a horizontal rod and rotating them by a pedal, he increased the complexity of the chords - and the virtuosity of the music.

The banned instrument reappeared with the help of a master glassblower, Gerhard Finkenbeiner, who coincidentally looked like Franklin.

Though born in Germany, where the instrument was still well known, Finkenbeiner first became entranced by the instrument in Paris. But it wasn't until 25 years later, in the 1980s, that Finkenbeiner made his own. Then, when he found a market, he manufactured them on a regular basis.

In yet another mystery, Finkenbeiner disappeared last year while piloting a small plane over the thick woods and scattered cranberry bogs of Carver, Mass. His body was never found.

Finkenbeiner had helped launch a new generation of performers, composers and instrument makers. Now, many are associated with Glass Music International Inc., of Boston, a group that has sponsored seven music festivals in the last 10 years.

For Carolinn Skyler, a blind musician in Chelsea, Mass., Finkenbeiner created a 5-foot-long glass harmonica - the largest ever made. At home, Skyler prepares to play it with her ritual: filling a bowl of ice cubes with natural spring water, then washing her hands for several minutes until they squeak clean.

"I was as hooked as much as one can get hooked," she says of her first encounter with the instrument five years ago. Now, she calls herself "a happy servant of glass harmonica music."