DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN PERFORMANCE ON LITHOPHONE AT THE END OF THE 18TH – IN THE 19TH CENTURIES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of European performance on lithophones and instrumental analysis of their design features. The quest to overcome the dry crackling sound of the xylophone led to experiments with materials that would replace wood (metal, glass, various types of stones), resulting in metalophones, glass harmonicas and lithophones. In Europe, lithophones appeared at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries and had two types of fundamentally different designs. The first type consisted of processed stone fragments, which due to the massiveness of the plates determined their perpendicular location in relation to the performer (analogous to African and American xylophones). The second type was made of polished alabaster plates and completely imitated the design of traditional European instruments with the arrangement of the plates parallel to the performer. The first European lithophones appeared in the north of England. Thanks to the performance of J. Richardson and his sons, the lithophone gained popularity not only in England, but also abroad. Their numerous tours of European cities stimulated interest in the instrument and its sound properties. In France, Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic throughout the 19th century began to develop their own models of this instrument, which were given their own names – stone harmonica, geological piano, mitophone, lithocimbalon. The purpose of the article is to introduce into scientific circulation new information gleaned from archival materials and periodicals concerning the functioning of lithophones in European musical culture, as well as the names of forgotten European performers on lithophones. The scientific novelty of the study is the introduction into scientific circulation of little-known materials related to the functioning of lithophones in the European musical culture of the end of the 18th – 19th centuries.