Glass harmonica Franklin and a fellow of the Royal Society, extended the experiments of Pockrich, contriving a set of glasses better tuned and easier to play. During the same decade, Christoph Willibald Gluck also attracted attention playing a similar instrument in England. Benjamin Franklin invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval at Cambridge in England in May 1761. Franklin worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies. Writing to his friend Giambatista Beccaria in Turin, Italy,
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