Anne Ford it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the "viol di gambo". Ford gave a performance at Spring Gardens in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, "Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses". The instrument was comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by Marianne Davies. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the
Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello The Adagio and Rondo, K. 617, is a quintet composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello. Completed on May 23, 1791 (the date indicated in Mozart's own list of his works), it was written for Marianne Kirchgessner, a blind glass harmonica virtuoso, who played the first performance in the Burgtheater Akademie on June 10, 1791, and subsequently performed it at the Kärtnertortheater on August 19, 1791. The autograph manuscript is in the British Library as part of the Stefan Zweig Collection. It was