Sunday, August 27, 2023

Sunday morning music

 

Here's something different to start your Sunday:  a so-called "glass harp".


A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrillon or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses.

It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Each glass is tuned to a different pitch, either by grinding each goblet to the specified pitch, in which case the tuning is invariable, or by filling the glass with water until the desired pitch is achieved. Adding water causes the pitch to go down. Each glass model may have its pitch lowered by a fourth or even larger interval.


GlassDuo is a partnership between Polish musicians Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec.  They've performed all over the world, and have had several pieces of original music composed for them.  Their repertoire is eclectic, from classical to pop to rock music, and including pieces from different countries and musical traditions.

Here are several pieces by Glassduo, solo or accompanied.  I like all of them.












You'll find lots more of their music on their YouTube channel.

Peter


4 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting these, Mr Grant. In particular, the version of Fragile was... well, breathtaking.

    How lovely.

    Mike in Canada

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful and haunting.

    IIRC, this was an actual classic musical instrument, and several composers back then wrote pieces for them. Unfortunately, the instrument makers began to paint the glass black and white (like a piano), and then the musicians started to get sick or die. The white paint contained arsenic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, this was an actual classical music instrument.

    I first discovered GlassDuo about seven years ago. There are several others on YouTube that play this instrument.

    Robert Tiso plays Boléro by M. Ravel with multitrack Glass Harp Orchestra.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftb8Nr5QnWU




    A Glassharmonica (also called glassarmonica) is a related instrument. Try this one. It shows the motor driven glass bowls. It looks kind of like a small lathe.

    Glassharmonica / "Grave" (Röllig) by Thomas Bloch
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gx5Dk-42lE


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LP8QFR9Qvc
    The Last Transit of Venus' for Glass Armonica

    Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Glassharmonica was also used as part of the backing instrumentation when Trio (Ronstadt, Parton, Harris) were on the Letterman Show two decades ago.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2XcBL6kWn8

    ReplyDelete

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