Marianne Kirchgessner

Marianne Antonia Kirchgessner, also Mariana Kirchgessner, Kirchgäßner, (5 June 1769 in Bruchsal, Germany, - 9 December 1808), was a German glass harmonica player. She was blind from eye disease caused smallpox when she was four years old. Kirchgessner's artistic qualities brought her the attention of great composers such as Muzio Clementi, Johann Gottlieb Naumann, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Franz Anton Hoffmeister.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, in the last year of his life, composed for her—producing one of his best works for this instrument, the Quintet Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica flute, cello, oboe and violla in C major K. 617, as well as the Adagio for glass harmonica solo K356/617a.

As the fifth daughter of Joseph Anton Kirchgäßner, a chamber paymaster from Speyer, and his wife Maria Teresa, née Waßmuthin, she began playing the clavier with great skill and expression at the age of 6. At 11 she went to study the glass harmonica for 10 year with kapellmeister Joseph Aloys Schimittbauer (1718–1809) in Karlsruhe. In the spring of 1791 she went on her first tour in the company of music journalist and biographer Heinrich Philipp Bossler (1744–1812) and his wife.

After that, she traveled throughout Europe for ten years, visiting Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg, and Magdeburg. She played four times at the Prussian court for King Friedrich Wilhelm II in Berlin. During her two-year stay in London between 1794–1796, the German-born mechanic Fröschela built a new instrument for her. She used that instrument on all her subsequent tours.

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