MESMEROMANIA is how the Paris press reported it.
Parisians including the wife of King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, were in love with a man by the name of Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer.
Dr. Mesmer was rich in part because he married a rich widow, but also because he became a successful Viennese physician.
He lived on a well-appointed estate and hosted the then young twelve-year-old musical prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Mozart was introduced to Benjamin Franklin’s invention, the “Armonica,” by Mesmer, (who used it to ‘mesmerize’ his patients.)
The young Mozart composed a musical piece for Mesmer’s “Glass Armonica,” and later wrote a solo armonica piece, and a larger quintet for armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello.
