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
Glass harmonica instrument on display, which is occasionally used for public performances and recordings. Composers including J. G. Naumann, Padre Martini, Johann Adolph Hasse, Baldassare Galuppi, and Niccolò Jommelli, and more than 100 others composed works for the glass harmonica; some pieces survive in the repertoire through transcriptions for more conventional instruments. European monarchs indulged in playing it, and even Marie Antoinette took lessons as a child from Franz Anton Mesmer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his 1791 K. 617 and K.356 (K.617a) for the glass harmonica. Ludwig van Beethoven used the instrument in an 1814 melodrama "Leonore Prohaska". Gaetano Donizetti used the