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| Music for Glass Harmonica | 
 enlarge | Creators: Hans Plumacher, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Gottlieb Naumann, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Karl Leopold Rollig, Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, Gert Nose, Karl Heinz Ulrich, Bruno Hoffmann, Helmut Hucke, Ernst Nippes, Herbert Anrath, Walter Albers
Label: Vox (Classical)
Category: Music
List Price: $4.98
Buy New: $2.80
You Save: $2.18 (44%)
Buy New/Used from $1.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  (9 reviews)
Sales Rank: 48747
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.6 x 0.5
MPN: 8174
UPC: 047163817427
EAN: 0047163817427
ASIN: B000001KAZ
Release Date: August 22, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Adagio | | • | Rondo | | • | Adagio In C Major, K. 617 | | • | Rondeau In B Flat Major | | • | Quintet In C Minor | | • | Largo In C Minor | | • | Quartet In C Major |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Heavenly Music May 3, 2007
Simply the best relaxing music I've ever heard. Even better than the New Age stuff that I also like.
 Worthy Recordings August 17, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bruno Hoffmann gives a great performance in this album. This is a good disk to add to your collection of Glass Harmonica records. If you have not heard Glass Harmonica before I would recommend picking up Thomas Bloch's album entitled 'Glass Harmonica' under the Naxos label.
Great performance; but want more. August 15, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found the quality of performance out standing. I would have enjoyed hearing more music that Franklan might have played himself.
MUSIC OF THE HEMISPHERES February 4, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
It would have helped if there had been a more fulsome explanation with this disc of the kind of instrument that Bruno Hoffmann is actually playing. All the liner-note tells us is that it is something called a `glass harp', apparently of his own devising. Presumably I can read reliably elsewhere about the kind of instrument Mozart's father was excited by. This appears to have been designed by no less than Ben Franklin and expertly played, I assume without resorting to hypnotism, by Anton Mesmer. If I have understood rightly, it was a set of glass bowls arranged on a spindle. This made it obviously more practicable than a set of separate glasses filled with water (or other liquids) to various levels, something that would call for an octopus of the requisite musical talent. But a `harp' - I really would have liked more detail.
Mesmer himself could not have achieved anything so mesmeric as Mozart's Adagio and rondo. This is a late piece, from his last months, and has the peculiar rarified feel to it that others of his works from the same time do. Over and above the special idiom, there is of course the weird other-worldly sound. Unlike the rest of the composers represented here, who tend to use the instrument antiphonally against the remainder of the group, Mozart builds its strange resonance in with the flute, oboe, viola and cello that make up the balance of his ensemble. Allegedly the original glass harmonicas had adverse effects on their hearers' nerves, and I can quite imagine. Happily I can report all the same that neither 20 minutes of Mozart nor 55 minutes in total of the ever-euphonious 18th century gave me any such reaction. The pipes of Pan in legend could create the panic that is called after them, but they could entrance their hearers also.
The other four composers sharing the disc with Mozart are all contemporaries of his, and their music strikes me as definitely good, not totally overshadowed by Amadeus. There is another short number by him for the harmonica on its own, and the item from Schulz is a similar effort, of the same length and in much the same mood. The Naumann quartet is for Mozart's forces minus the oboe. In the other two compositions the harmonica is combined with strings, a standard quartet from Roellig and that plus a double-bass from Reichardt. The sequence of the works on the disc has been sensibly arranged to minimise any possible fatigue to the ear, and I should say panic is an unlikely consequence.
The recorded quality seems to me perfectly fair and acceptable. I know what the other instruments ought to sound like, so I have to assume that Dr Hoffmann's glass harp is accorded similar fidelity. The liner-note, by R.D.Darrell, is really quite helpful and instructive too, if only it had not left me hungering for more information about the glass harp.
It's on CD! May 28, 2003
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have loved this "album" for years on vinyl and it is wonderful to see that VOX is reissuing this on CD. It's haunting sounds are sure to please all but the most hard-headed rocker. Buy with total confidence-a marvelous addition to your music library.
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