This holiday season's most sophisticated gift for the adventurous music-lover is... the Glass Harmonica.
Music lovers and makers, rejoice! The discovery of quartz glass has finally made it possible to recreate the haunting, ethereal sounds that lead Thomas Jefferson to deem the Glass Harmonica "the greatest gift offered to the musical world." The same model that made it possible to play ten glasses simultaneously is now back, with its thirty-seven glass bowls, color-coded according to pitch and affixed horizontally to a rotating spindle. With a simple push of the foot-lever, the bowls will rotate with the easy touch of your nimble, moistened fingers, emanating a consistently disorienting sound within the 1,000-4,000 Hertz range. Rejoice, for the Glass Harmonica (created by our own illustrious founding father, Benjamin Franklin) is back and better than ever. And best of all, you can now play it without the fear of developing lead poisoning! *
With this instrument you can join the ranks of Mozart (whose "Adagio and Rondo, K. 617" is written entirely for the Glass Harmonica), Galileo, Beethoven, Marie-Antoinette, Goethe and Theophile Gautier in their praise of and experimentation with this "celestial voice." The Glass Harmonica, played by the notorious Viennese doctor and hypnotist Franz Anton Mesmer to condition therapy clients, would make the perfect gift for the mature and daring music fan on your holiday list.
*While lead poisoning is no longer a concern due to the implementation of quartz glass as opposed to leaded glass, no remedies have been made in response to the claims of insanity, nervous disorders, domestic squabbles, fatal injuries, convulsion or other maladies caused by the instrument.
Testimonials:
"The harmonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation. If you are suffering from any nervous disorder, you should not play it; if you are not yet ill you should not play it; if you are feeling melancholy you should not play it." -German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz
"Its melancholy tone plunges you into dejection. The strongest man could not hear it for an hour without fainting." -J.M. Roger
"It is true that the Harmonica has strange effects on people. If you are irritated or disturbed by bad news, by friends or even by a disappointing lady, abstain from playing; it would only increase your disturbance." -J.C. Miller
