L'estro armonico National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The 1797 Encyclopædia Britannica records that the fifth concerto was also played on an Irish variant of Benjamin Franklin's celebrated invention, the glass harmonica. Under the entry for "Harmonica" or "Armonica", a 35-glass harmonica is described, about which its inventor, the Dublin physician Edward Cullen, writes: There were numerous arrangements for keyboard instruments in the eighteenth century, as described in the next section. One surviving eighteenth century transcription of Op.3, No.3 has been interpreted as an arrangement for glockenspiel. Themes from movements in the concertos were borrowed by other composers for vocal works: the
Paris in the 18th century as far away as Saint Petersburg. An important feature of the Paris literary world was the literary salon, where wives of the nobility invited their friends to their homes to hear readings of new books and to discuss literature, and, later in the century, politics. The first famous Paris salon of the 18th century was that of Madame de Lambert in her town house on rue Richelieu in 1710, followed by those of Madames de Tencin, Geoffrin, Du Deffand, d'Épinay, Helvétius, and Necker. The Revolution brought an abrupt end to the literary salons, as the aristocrats were executed or forced