Music for Glass Harmonica

"If you have a keen interest in the glass harmonica you may wish to investigate a Naxos issue of performances by Thomas Bloch. Playing time is generous (70:56) and price is budget...a fascinating listening experience."
- R.E.B. Classical CD Review March 2002

"While the practice of generating different pitches from vessels filled with calculated volumes of water was known as early as the 15th Century, it took 18th Century Irish composer Richard Puckeridge to codify the technique. In Glass Harmonica (Naxos), Thomas Bloch explores the rare entertainment of the instrument, from a playful Mozart Rondo to a Donizetti aria - the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor, something of a signature work- to his own unsettling "Sancta Maria." With a frosty sound pitched somewhere between celeste, calliope and snowdrift, this is the most beautiful uneasy listening."
- Stylemanitoba, July 2002

"The glass harmonica has glass bowls arranged horizontally and rotated by a rod connected to a pedal. The eerily pure and penetrating sound, less clinical than a sine wave and rich in silvery harmonics, is produced by the fingers on the rims, and, it's said, drove several players mad... Thomas Bloch comes out of it gracefully."
- Adrian Jack, BBC Music Magazine, March 2002