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
Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello purchased by Zweig from a Berlin auction house in 1930. The work was first published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1799. The adagio, in C minor, is 58 bars long, while the rondo (C major) contains 230 bars. According to Willi Apel, "Among various compositions for the glass harmonica, Mozart's Adagio in C major (K. 356) and Adagio and Rondo (K. 617)...both composed in 1791, are the most interesting. They seem to require an instrument equipped with a keyboard mechanism such as that constructed in 1784." Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello The Adagio and